FRANCE - Revue des Œnologues n°180 - OTR and Ageing

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Extract : 

Our recent work has made it possible to determine the impact of the stopper’s OTR (Oxygen Transmission Rate) on the evolution of the aroma of white Sauvignon Blanc wines during long-term ageing for 10 years (Pons et al., 2019) and of rosé wines for a period of three years (Cayla et al., 2019). Today, this physical characteristic of stoppers is quite often evaluated by means of the luminescence method, known as the Presens method (Diéval et al., 2011). This method is applied most often to the OTR measurement of stoppers early in ageing for a transmission level between less than 0.1 mg/year up to more than 40 mg/year (Robertson, 2009). Tinlined screw caps are known to provide the tightest seal, whereas natural cork stoppers can show extreme variations in OTR level, owing to their structural heterogeneity. As such, in order to expand our knowledge of OTR stability during ageing, as well as its impact on wine colour, aroma and flavour, we present here the results of a comparative study of protocols applied to OTR measurements on a number of “aged” stoppers from a variety of studies.