Guala launches screwcap for 75cl sparkling

The ground-breaking Viiva closure is suitable for up to 5GV liquid pressure and will keep a sparkling wine’s correct level of carbonation for weeks after opening - even when laid side-down in the fridge.  Fully brand-able and stress-tested, it delivers numerous consumer benefits.

“Viiva brings all the advantages a still wine screwcap has over cork firmly into the sparkling arena,” comments Guala Closures’ Simon Yudelevich.  “It’s safe and easy to open and can be re-sealed without any damage to the quality of the fizz, which dramatically increases the opportunities for by-the-glass sales and drinking.”

The closure also offers efficiency benefits to wineries, from eliminating waste caused by TCA contamination to streamlining the supply chain as only one product is used instead of the three needed for traditional cork closures (cork, muselet and hood).

Viiva is the result of a five year collaboration between Guala Closures and O-I Glass and was officially launched in Australia last week with De Bortoli’s Willowglen and Trevi ranges.
 
“We’ve made the decision to convert the entirety of these two ranges exclusively to the new closure because this technology is truly ground-breaking and will put Australia’s sparkling wine industry at the forefront of innovation,” comments De Bortoli Wines’ national sales manager Peter Yeoman.

Security seal
Guala Closures says it is now beginning production in Australia on a newly developed “Rolls Royce of all machines” for producing its security seals on wine bottles.

Two years ago, Guala first released its Roll On Tamper Evident closures – which feature an integral, brightly coloured plastics ring that drops into view once a screwcap seal has been broken – particularly targeting “high risk” markets such as Asia, China and Russia, where counterfeiting can be a major problem.
“We are focusing a lot of our resources on this area,” says the company’s sales & marketing manager Simon Yudelevich. “I look at it more from a brand protection angle – being proactive rather than reactive,” he adds.

This year, Australian wine producer Tim Adams has become the first to adopt the Roll On TE system. The closures are produced on the new patented machinery built especially for Guala in Melbourne, at the same location as the company’s aluminium facility.

“There is no barrier to adoption,” says Yudelevich. “The customer can run it on the same production line using the same equipment as normal.” The risk of counterfeiting is much reduced though, he says, as the cost of setting up machinery of this type would be “very high”.

Although Yudelevich says it is a “very complicated process”, any additional cost to the customer is negligible, estimated at “about 2 cents per bottle”. The Guala Roll On TE design won an Alufoil trophy in March this year, awarded by the European Aluminium Foil Association (EAFA).

1 June 2012 - Felicity Murray