About Cork Supply
Rua Nova do Fial Nº 102, Apartado 19
4536-907 S. Paio de Oleiros
Portugal
Telephone: +351 227 471 400
Email: [email protected]
Wine
German thoroughness meets the Portuguese spirit of discovery
Jochen Michalski founded his first company in 1981: selling carefully selected bottle corks in the USA under the name "Cork Supply". However, after the company went global and was present in the major wine producing countries in the world, he was soon to move into cork production in Portugal himself. He later started a wine-label business in Australia and eventually began producing and selling wooden barrels in the United States. Michalski has now put a common face on these companies, calling it HARV 81 – referring to the year Cork Supply was founded.
Natural cork producers tend to give a monochrome answer when it comes to the question of the ideal bottle stopper. So it is a real pleasure to talk with Jochen Michalski, the founder and president of Cork Supply. The difference lies in the approach! Jochen Michalski was not a cork producer from the start, but – as the company name suggests – a supplier. The German native founded his company in northern California in 1981, initially specialising in the sale of wine closures, supplying them to nearby wineries. The company grew quickly, and did so right along with the needs of its customers. The demand for not only good but excellent bottle closures increased greatly, and Jochen Michalski opened his own cork production company in Portugal a few years later. Because only if all steps – from harvesting the cork oak to the finished bottle cork – are placed under the strictest of quality control, does the possibility of an ideal closure exist. For Jochen Michalski, the best and finest quality – coupled with innovation and research – was always at the top of his list.
Jochen Michalski sums up the company’s orientation: ‘We owe what we are today to our customers, all over the world. Every decision in the company is therefore exclusively based on the needs and requirements of our clients’.
Innovation and research
It’s no wonder that Cork Supply invests a lot of time and money in research and innovation. They have considerable success to show for it. The company introduced sensory analysis – quality control – to wine corks in 1984. Since 2011, Michalski’s company has been offering a natural cork that is guaranteed to be free of any contamination. Cork Supply then issues the ‘Bottle Buy-Back Guarantee’: If a bottle with an actual cork defect is found, the purchase price will be refunded to the customer. To prevent this from happening, specially trained employees smell each and every single cork. The cork will be sold only after three trained ‘cork sniffers’ pronounce it to be pristine. The human nose is so accurate and effective that, in addition to the classic and pervasive cork flaw TCA, it can also recognise other varieties of taint that could damage the flavour of a wine.
Just this year the Portuguese cork producer has succeeded in achieving a technical innovation that will eliminate any off-aromas or flavours that affect a wine: the InnoCork Circuit. The technical innovation that Cork Supply now offers is a totally logical consequence of Jochen Michalski’s strategic approach. Working with his R&D team, Michalski – as the first cork producer worldwide – has developed a system with which he can guarantee natural corks free of TCA and with total sensory neutralities.
HARV 81
Thirty-nine years after its founding, the company now has more than 500 employees working in the world’s most important wine countries – Australia, South Africa, Argentina, Portugal, Spain, Italy, France and China. Even if the primary focus remains the production and distribution of corks, the business has diversified into other products and services for the wine industry. Cork Supply opened the label company Studio Labels in Australia in 2007, and since 2008 the group has been successfully fabricating oak barrels with Tonnellerie Ô in the USA. Each of the three companies arose out of a customer service concept and has its own distinct identity. Since the beginning of the year, the three businesses – closures, oak and labels – have been consolidated under the name HARV 81. According to their motto: ‘Excellence on all levels’.
