green cork
By Brooklyn Hurst, Sommelier( ISG)
Let’ s talk cork. If you are into wine, likely you have an opinion on this impermeable, buoyant, elastic, and fire-resistant substance endemic to Europe and Africa. Statistics say that if you are a wine drinker, you like cork, but you probably have no problem with alternative closures, to a certain price point.
If you are a bulk wine producer, cork is a tad expensive relative to the synthetic version, which provides the ceremony that so many consumers insist upon, while allowing for better profit margins. However, if you are a Bordelais winemaker crafting a fine wine designed to age for a decade or more, then cork is probably your friend.
And if you are an environmentally conscious individual, then … what? Where should you stand when it comes to cork?
Cork is biodegradable, but does that make it more environmentally friendly than plastic stoppers or aluminum screwcaps? Consider the arguments that commercial cork farms destroy vital habitats, that the cork industry cuts down these trees, or that there is a cork shortage, which must mean over-harvesting. These are common positions taken against the cork business, but there are some misconceptions.
Far from destroying habitats, cork forests actually work to preserve them. Cork Oak forests support diverse flora and fauna and also prevent desertification, which is more than the screwcap forest can claim. And for the record, there is no worldwide shortage of cork, despite what you have heard.
The production of cork stoppers is also environmentally sustainable, as Cork Oak trees, which can live up to 200 years, are only harvested once every nine years( by extracting the bark only). Couple this with the easy recycling of cork products and by-products, and you have what they call a“ green product.”
But how much“ greener” are corks than alternative stoppers? A year-long study attempted to answer just
that, and concluded that plastic corks( including plastic capsules) were nine times more damaging to the environment than cork stoppers, and that aluminum screwcaps were a ghastly 22 times more harmful. The study considered seven major facets of environmental impact, and cork performed best on six of them. It should be noted that the study was funded by the cork industry, and did not consider the environmental impact of cork’ s famous unreliability. In comparison to plastic cork or screwcap, real cork simply ruins more wine, thereby necessitating opening more bottles and expanding the carbon footprint.
Many winemakers have become fed up with the unreliability of cork, and have embraced alternative closures, which have substantially lower rates of failure. The last ten years have seen the use of cork stoppers drop, but the cork industry has not remained idle. Much advancement has been made in the last decade to upgrade production facilities, which today claim much lower incidences of TCA( the chemical that causes cork taint).
Alternative closures have certainly challenged cork’ s supremacy, but the growing“ green” movement, along with improvements in industry quality control, have caused somewhat of a cork renaissance. Environmentally friendly or not, however, the quality of cork as it pertains to wine will determine whether it will be around for another 300 years. As it stands, experts seem divided. Some artisanal producers remain loyal to cork, while others wish they could bottle even their most expensive flagship wines under screwcap( if only public perception would allow it). Perhaps it is just a matter of time before a“ greener” closure comes along that meets or exceeds all of cork’ s better qualities, and replaces cork in the same way that the cork stopper replaced the oily rag that used to plug bottles in the 17th century. �
Eco-friendly tags on Banville & Jones Wine Co. store shelves indicate wines from around the globe that are produced under four categories: sustainably produced, organic, biodynamic, and carbon neutral.
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