Amorim, the world's largest cork producer, is working with a British company specializing in gas chromatography to develop an industrial prototype for detecting TCA in every cork - in very small amounts TCA, the "cork taste" in the wine will be very clearly discernible.

The current GC analysis system takes 14 minutes to complete the detection of a cork sample, a speed that does not allow it to be used on a large scale. Still, Amorim's 15 machines are able to test 16,000 samples per month.

In comparison, the latest prototype will analyze each cork in 20 seconds. This means that Amorim can test 1.5 million corks per year (the company produces 3.6 billion corks per year).

"This is just the beginning," says Amorim's oenologist Paulo Lopes, who says the technology was originally designed to help the company produce the highest quality corks.

Lopez said: "Now we have learned that TCA is not produced during the production process, but already exists in the oak forest."

Therefore, Amorim is working to detect which oak forests have the highest TCA content, so that they can use the test results to select the material used for the cork.