It’s light, elastic, impermeable, durable, buoyant, fire retardant, reusable, 100% recyclable and kind to the environment. It’s cork.
Technology has yet to match this amazing combination of properties nature has provided. The leftovers from making closures for wine bottles, corks’ most common use, are ground up and used for flooring, insulation, shoe soles, handbags and more. Great stuff!
Cork is the bark of the cork oak tree (Quercus suber) and is first harvested when the tree is about 25 years old. Done by experts called “extractors,” the tree remains unharmed, providing fresh cork roughly every nine years, and lives on for about 300 years.
The cork oak grows naturally only in Iberia and North Africa, with Portugal producing 50% of the world’s supply. Spain is next at 30%, with Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Italy and France all chipping in. In 2007 the Portuguese national postal service issued the world’s first cork postage stamp.
What about “cork taint,” which I wrote of last month. Cork taint is a very undesirable wet newspaper or damp basement smell that, while not harmful to drink, pretty much ruins the wine experience. It’s not the cork’s fault. TCA (2,4,6-Trichloroanisole; the stuff that stinks up corked wine) results from contamination during the cork cleaning process.
About 30% of wine bottles now are sealed with alternative closures. Sangiovese and Riesling are particularly sensitive to cork taint and you may find non-cork closures more often in these bottles, though they’ll also show up in any kind of wine bottle.
Screw caps are the most common alternate closure. There are also Vino-Seals, which are glass stoppers with a plastic gasket sealing against the bottle. Crown caps are the closures seen on beer and soda bottles and are making their way into the wine industry. Synthetic corks look very much like the real thing but are plastic. Reconstituted corks are real cork, ground up and molded into the necessary shape.
I’m a bit old school here and prefer the real thing. So I’ll be dealing with cork taint now and then, but I love the ritual of using a corkscrew. And the pop and celebratory feel of opening a sparkler can’t be replaced. And I love trees.
Ernest Valtri of Buckingham is a sculptor, graphic designer and a former member of the PLCB’s Wine Advisory Council. Contact Erno at ObjectDesign@verizon.net.
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