A family-run producer in France’s most famous sparkling wine region, Champagne René Jolly, has devised a variation on the traditional Champagne closure – the Muselet-Y – that has the potential to greatly reduce the use of packaging materials in the sparkling wine sector globally, writes David Longfield.
The Muselet-Y is a three-legged adaptation of the traditional four-legged wire cage that holds a cork securely in the neck of a bottle of sparkling wine.
Current winemaker and 5th generation head of the family business Pierre-Eric Jolly, who conceived and developed the Muselet-Y, says that this single change reduces the amount of mild steel wire required by about 19cm for each cage – an impressive material saving of 41%.
And a switch away from the traditional metal capsule that sits on top of the Champagne cork, underneath the upper part of the wire cage, to a new equivalent made of “medical grade” plastic, contributes to an overall saving of 90% in the energy required to manufacture the Muselet-Y, compared to the traditional all-metal format.
Having come up with the concept in 2007, Jolly developed the machinery for producing Muselet-Y himself.
Talking exclusively to Packaging Today at the London International Wine Fair in May, he said: “It took four years to develop the plastic cap, and we finally started production about six months ago.”
Jolly buys the plastic caps ready-made from a French manufacturer local to Champagne, and the wire is sourced from the same supplier as for his traditional Champagne closures.
Pressure solution
With only three notches around the edge of the capsule that sits on top of the cork, the three wires must cross in the centre – forming a Y-shape – as opposed to the normal technique in which the four-wire legs are attached (via four notches) to a circle of wire that runs around the edge of the capsule, so that the wires do not have to pass across its top.
The technological challenge brought about by this Y-shaped arrangement is that the pressure applied to the centre of the capsule – traditionally made of metal – will invariably result in the capsule collapsing.
Moving to a rigid plastic capsule, however, eliminates this problem completely, while at the same time bringing a raft of potential new marketing and branding opportunities, through the use of colour, decoration, texture or coding and marking techniques.
“For the cost of one traditional metal wire closure, I can produce nine Muselet-Y,” Jolly said.
“And if all Champagne producers started using Muselet-Y, we would make a saving of more than 105,000km of wire per year.”
More than that, he rather ambitiously added, were all producers of sparkling wines around the world to switch to using Muselet-Y, there would be a saving equivalent to more than 1 million kilometres of wire.
As a result of the new design of Muselet-Y, Jolly also said that there could be a further material saving of 2mm in the length of the cork itself – although current legislation in the Champagne region does not permit a cork shorter than 48mm. It’s something Jolly is working on.
Past forward
Though not from an engineering background, Jolly comes from a family that has always tried to make improvements to existing technologies.
“My grandfather had the first motor car in the village (Landreville), and my father owned the first automatic press in the Champagne region,” he told Packaging Today. “We are always trying to find new solutions.”
Jolly is now in discussions with engineering companies in France, with a view to developing the Muselet-Y system further, and the licensing of the four international patents involved.
