- "Plastic corks" is a contradiction in terms, but the word cork is so synonymous with the role it plays in keeping wine in bottles that the phrase has been assimilated into the language of wine drinking. Beer bottles were also plugged with corks in the past, but bottling and canning technology deprived them of this use many years ago.
- Corks for wine bottles are a major export for Portugal, which produces about half the world's corks, and also for neighboring Spain. Both countries therefore view the use of "plastic corks" with great concern. There are about 2.2 million hectares of cork forest worldwide, of which 32 percent are in Portugal and 22 percent in Spain.
- Corks have many assets as wine stoppers, including impermeability and elasticity, but they have a major drawback---"corking" or "cork taint." Wines are described as "corked" if they have a musty smell when opened, and may be undrinkable.
The chemical trichloroanisole (TCA) is responsible. It is produced by the reaction of molds in the cork pores with traces of bleach used to sanitize the cork during production. The Portuguese Cork Association has invested millions of dollars trying to find a solution to "corking." - That, plus lower costs of alternative stoppers such as "plastic corks" and screwcaps, has led to a fall in demand for traditional corks. For Portugal, where 20,000 people work in the country's 500 cork-making factories, a lot is at stake.
Cork is the most important of Portuguese exports and represents about 16 percent of foreign trade. Portugal's main markets are the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany. - But the good news for cork is that many wine drinkers---notably in the United States, which is set to become the world's largest wine market---have in surveys expressed a strong preference for traditional corks over the alternatives.
previous post