“Continuous improvement” A matter of philosophy.

The technical department of Gruart La Mancha works to fill its customers’ needs. Throughout nearly 30 years in the market it has always purchased the most modern technology to apply in its production process. So it was again in 2011, when three machines for electronic selection (photo 1) and two machines for laser branding (photo 4) were incorporated.

In 2011 we went not only for the modifications of the facilities and the introduction of the most modern technology for the production of our cork stoppers, but also for boosting our Technical Department, with highly qualified engineers (chemists and winemakers) and incorporating more and more precise analytical techniques for the control of its product. A gas-mass chromatograph of the latest generation (photo 2) was purchased in order to study anisole since the cork is sampled in the land, until we get the cork stoppers as final product for the customers.

Following this line of “continuous improvement”, this Technical Department has opened a new line of research for the study of colour and for that it has just incorporated a spectrophotometer (photo 3), which uses wavelengths from ultraviolet to visible light.

With this new line of research, Gruart  La Mancha aims at doing the most suitable washing so that the cork stoppers transmit color the least to the wines and to cut the concentration of polyphenols right back, by means of the study of the index of total polyphenols in the extraction washings.

With this colour extraction and the reduction in total polyphenols, we want our cork stoppers to be as neutral as possible and so that they add neither colour nor aggressive tannins, which are not very valued due to its astringency.

Since September this year, we have Noelia López in our Technical Department, who is winemaker with extensive training in tasting. With the incorporation of Noelia (photo 5), Gruart La Mancha strengthens the Technical Department for the carrying out of organoleptic analyses individually of cork stoppers.

Juan Amador Rodríguez

Technical Director.