Mureddu Sugheri uses widely tested materials produced by its own factories, and relies on its qualified staff of cork experts, working in Spain and Portugal.
SOCIEDADE LUSO-ITALIANA DE CORTIÇA
The company uses choice cork to produce natural stoppers intended for use in bottling quality wines. The factory is equipped with an open stainless steel boiler that continuously exchanges clean water for the old, a cement yard used for seasoning the raw material, a covered and well-ventilated surface for stacking prepared materials, and modern machines for processing the product.
The open-tank system for boiling raw cork is the critical step in the production cycle, because it removes all volatile substances in the cooking steam and water-soluble substances through full immersion in the water in the boiler.
The water is changed after each boiling to ensure deep cleaning, prevent new contamination, and achieve a final result with highly stable sensory characteristics.
AGLO CATALANA DEL SURO
The company located in Riudellots de la Selva, in the Catalonian province of Girona, produces aggregate stoppers in various sizes, technical stoppers with one or two disks, and corks for sparkling wine.
After selecting the best sources, the granulated cork undergoes a sanitizing washing and drying process to leave the finished product with most neutral possible sensory characteristics.
The company owns machinery that can produce more than one hundred million pieces per year in all sizes, from the 23 mm gauge used for still wine up to the standard 31 mm size for sparkling wine.
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Once it arrives in Italy, the material undergoes another battery of tests to ensure the best possible performance quality.
Mureddu Sugheri has adopted a rigorous product control system that entails testing for humidity, residual oxidizing substances, compression recovery, and gas seal, and it tests the sensory characteristics using a statistically representative sample of all arriving materials. Our company perfected this method in 1994 (Dr. M. G. Dallavalle), and it was announced at the “International Cork Symposium” held in Pavia in 1996.
In 2008, destructive organolopetic (sensory characteristic) testing was done on 250,000 samples. Over the last decade, these tests have allowed the company to achieve consistently excellent quality standards in cork that are only possible by combining careful analysis of the raw materials with scrupulous control over the process and fundamental and rigorous product control.