Popping A Champagne Bottle

Talking about champagne (see my previous post), most consumers love the “popping” sound, but dislike the complicated struggle to open a champagne bottle, which always seems to go wrong. Therefore Alcan Packaging decided to develop an alternative closure. What, the traditionalists will shout, no cork? Awful, the champagne will taste differently. Champagne is no cider, they will declare.

But backed by famous French vineyard Champagne Duval-Leroy and eyeing the champagne market which produced 332 million bottles in 2008, Alcan Packaging Capsules was keen to find a reliable alternative closure, manufactured to precise specifications, which addressed the specific requirements of champagne. The result: World’s first metal champagne closure operated by a lever. Baptised ‘Maestro’, the closure comes including the famous “popping” sound. With this major innovation, Alcan Packaging Capsules provide Champagne Houses with an opportunity to present the consumer with a practical, innovative opening system endowed with innumerable decoration options.

The Maestro metal closure was officially launched in May topping the Champagne Duval-Leroy’s Clos des Bouveries 2004 vintage, giving the first glimpse of a system that has been touted as a replacement for the traditional champagne cork.

The Maestro closure is an opening system mounted on crown closures for shipment. The dome is built into the overcap closure with all the standard finishing processes, while the system retains the evocative “popping” sound of traditional cork closures when the bottle is opened.

Maestro can, according to Alcan, be provided in a range of materials including leather and fabrics and opens up almost unlimited decoration options for champagne and other sparkling wines.

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