Relationships between the inner cellulation of synthetic stoppers and browing of a white wine over eighteen months of storage

We attempted to predict the performance of cylindrical stoppers by evaluating their inner morphology. The same white wine lots were stored for eighteen months under controlled humidity and temperature conditions. Stopper cellulation was analysed using scanning electron microscopy. The results show that the wine-browning kinetics were significantly different for each stopper used and were related to the regularity of stopper cellulation. Combining our observations regarding the inner closure morphology with data on browning kinetics, we propose an arbitrary scale for classifying stopper quality. This scale can be practically applied during pre-bottling operations to choose the most efficient cylindrical closure.