Four Decades & Three Generations of Setting Sparkling Closures Apart

Relationships, quality and innovation are at the heart of Scott Laboratories and its vendors, and with ICAS and Relvas, those relationships go beyond business.

“They are like family,” says Chris Holman, GM of Cork & Packaging at Scott Labs. “Deep-rooted, engrained, and with unbreakable foundations.”

Like a family, these relationships stretch back generations.

Robert Scott (right) with Bruno Getto (center). Ivrea, 1965 with the Alps in background.

“Our relationship with ICAS began in 1964,” writes CEO Zack Scott in an article highlighting the history of their collaboration, “when my grandfather, Robert Scott, purchased Scott Labs. The company owned the patents and molds for the plastic sparkling wine stopper. We needed wirehoods to hold those bad boys in place, so Robert headed to Europe to sign up new vendors. ICAS was his first success.”

Paola Datta, who has been with ICAS for over 30 years, comments, “Bruno Getto founded ICAS in 1956, and our relationship with Scott Labs is the oldest we have. When Robert visited, women were manually producing individual wirehoods by hand.”

Today, ICAS is the world’s fastest and largest producer of wirehoods, producing 250-280 wirehoods a minute. ICAS integrates quality checks from the arrival of its Belgian wire to anomaly detection in the production line and final visual checks of artwork.

“It’s good to be fast and efficient, but people come to us for the quality,” says Holman. “When we sell that wirehood into the market, we know it’s the best.”

Relvas also has deep roots with Scott Labs. Robert’s son, Bruce Scott, remembers the day he met Carlos Relvas in 1977 on his first European trip.

“From my first meeting with Carlos,” commented Bruce, “several things were evident. He was smart, dynamic, honest and committed to making the best champagne corks in the world. Although finding a cork supplier was not on the agenda, it is the most enduring legacy of the trip and the beginning of a relationship that continues almost four and a half decades later.”

The Scott family’s relationships with these two companies led to another enduring relationship between ICAS and Relvas.

“Business relationships are built on family,” agrees Relvas GM, Cristiano Paulino. “When ICAS had quality issues with their cork supplier, Bruce Scott introduced Piero Getto to Carlos Relvas in October 1982. Years later, Carlos passed away, and his daughters sold shares to ICAS to strengthen our relationship in the key Champagne and Italian markets.”

Like ICAS, Relvas integrates QC into all stages of cork manufacturing, from finding the best cork on walks through the cork forests in Portugal, to testing corks in their labs with sensory analysis, chemistry and physics. This attention to detail led to the development of their patented boiling system.

“We boil cork to flatten the sheets that retain the tree trunks’ curve,” says Paulino, “and also to clean it. In the 1990s, cork TCA concerns were highest, and our filtration system offered a solution. Because it was a difficult time in the industry, Relvas opened the tech to everyone and it quickly became the industry standard.”

This shared emphasis on quality defines the synergistic relationships of these three companies, as does their enduring depth and longevity.

“Relationships mean everything to us,” says Holman. “Our supplier relationships are tried and true. We expect they’re going to represent us by providing the best products, and we represent them by supplying those products to our customers.”

For more information or to place an order for custom sparkling wine closures, visit Custom Cork & Wine Closures | Scott Laboratories.

To order stock wirehoods and sparkling wine cork, visit Sparkling Wine Packaging | Scott Laboratories.

wirehoods sparkling wine cork wine closures packaging relvas icas sparkling wine