Greetings from Planet Zebulon!

uncategorized

Greetings from Planet Zebulon!

Nomacorc is based in the wonderfully named town of Zebulon, which sounds like something from a Flash Gordon movie. I spent the day here yesterday, visiting Nomacorc’s headquarters. I have just a few minutes to blog, so I won’t go into any great detail, other to say that it’s a big operation, with 10 extrusion lines. Nomacorc are pretty much the synthetic cork category, with sales of 2.1 billion a year, and rising (Q1 2010 has been their best ever). This is out of a world closures market of just under 18 billion annually (screwcaps are currently 2.8 billion).

From the UK, you’d think synthetic corks are on the way out: we’re very much screwcap-focused at the commercial end of the market. And in New Zealand and Australia, synthetics are pretty much dead. But the category is growing quite considerably in Europe, at the expense of natural cork.

Had another nice US beer last night: Bell’s Two Hearted Ale from Michigan. A beautifully perfumed, powerfully flavoured hoppy IPA. Brilliant.

More later.

4 Comments on Greetings from Planet Zebulon!Tagged ,
wine journalist and flavour obsessive

4 thoughts on “Greetings from Planet Zebulon!

  1. Is there a historical reason to be based in Nth Carolina? Or is it tax, logistics or something else?

  2. Just what we needed! With the planet already awash with pollution, effluents, chemical run-offs, etc, companies introduce a new plastic petroleum-based product to create even more pollution. At the expence of a natural, environmentally friendly one that ensures that thousands of acres of land are farmed sustaiably and cleanly, and providing a living for thousands of cork-oak farmers.

    No-one benefits from this except for the shareholders of Nomacorc and similar polluters. The consumer may pay a few cents less for a bottle of wine now but our children and future generations will have to pay a whole lot more to clean up the environmental mess that that these unncecessary petroleum-based products are creating.

  3. Bell’s two hearted is by far one of the best IPA’s in America…my first stop every trip back to the states is to grab a six pack from the nearest store! 🙂

  4. Yes, really liked the Bell’s

    The North Carolina location is probably because the parent company, Nomarco, is based there – they’re foam extrusion experts

Leave a Reply

Back To Top