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Why Choose Cork?Luís Gil Why choose cork stoppers? 1) The technical performance of cork stoppers has been proven for centuries, even today in the age of synthetic stoppers. 2) Cork stoppers are reliable in the short and long term. Wines bottled with cork remain well-preserved for decades or even centuries. Almost all the wines bottled before the 1990's used cork. 3) Cork stoppers offer superb elasticity for smooth extraction, and can be easily reinserted to seal an unfinished bottle. 4) Despite the prevalence of new stoppering devices, studies show that wine consumers, producers and distributors prefer cork, which they equate with higher quality wine. 15 billion cork stoppers are sold every year. 5) Recent studies have shown that cork assists the ageing and evolution of wine, interacting with it in a similar way as oak. Not only does this interaction enhance flavor, but it produces compounds beneficial to human health. 6) Cork is a renewable resource and cork oak forests are one of the most sustainable natural systems, providing the habitat of several endangered species and supporting one of the highest levels of biodiversity among European forests. Cork comes from the bark of the cork oak, and is harvested only once every nine or ten years, without detriment to the tree. 7) Cork stoppers offer an unmatched range of grades to suit different sizes of bottles and types of wines. 8) Cork stoppers can be inserted at speeds of 20,000 bottles per hour. 9) Cork stoppers are completely recyclable into other products, including memo boards, bowls, floor coverings and insulating materials. Collecting/recycling already occurs globally. 10) Cork production is based in poor rural areas where it provides much needed jobs. About 150,000 people around the world work with cork, and it is an important part of Southern Europe and North African economies. Producers of synthetic stoppers have suggested cork leads to increased incidence of tainting. How safe is cork? 1) Tainting from cork has declined drastically. Recent wine tasting contests and studies conducted by the International Wine Challenge and the Wine and Spirit Association suggest tainting rates of 0.7 to 2% problems before 2001; and as low as 0.03% since then. 2) TCA (2,4,6-trichloroanisole, the key compound contributing to tainting) results from micro organisms when external chlorine or chlorine-containing compounds are present. New quality control measures (specifically the quality system known as SYSTECODE) prohibit chlorine in cork processing factories. 3) Cork is not the only culprit. TCA may exist in the environment and contaminate any kind of stoppers, including plastic, glass and stainless steel at any point during processing, transportation or storage, resulting in TCA tainting in bottles with non-cork stoppers and in plastic packages. 4) Indeed, cork stoppers may absorb TCA from wine when it is contaminated, thus reducing tainted wine. 5) Australian Wine Research Institute studies show that TCA in wine may be due to several contamination sources rather than cork. 6) An IEC Wine Society study showed that wine bottled with screwcaps resulted in a 0.5% incidence of tainting. 7) Screwcaps are implicated in reduction problems, resulting in rotten eggs or rotten cabbage odours. 8) Plastic stoppers and screwcaps, like plastic and aluminium packaging, may contain chemicals that are dangerous to human health, including some monomers (such as vinyl chloride from PVC), some additives (such as phthalates), benzaldehyde and amines (from polyethylene), semicarbazides (from PVC) and metallic ions, among others. 9) Cork companies and researchers have recently developed several patented processes to prevent or eliminate TCA contamination, which are already being used industrially. 10) The utilization of screwcaps requires investment in new bottling systems. 11) Cork stoppers should be considered as an element for wine processing, similar to oak barrels, because cork is the bark of an oak and has several constituents like polyphenols, vanillin etc. which interact positively with the wine. 12) It has been demonstrated that when cork comes in contact with wine, vescalagin from the cork reacts with wine catechins and produces acutissimin A, a very strong anti-tumour agent. 13) Cork sequesters carbon from the atmosphere; a cork stopper sequesters about twice is weight of CO2; all the cork stoppers produced in one year represent the CO2 pollution of about 49.000 automobiles each year. 14) The sustainability inherent in cork production and processing is unmatched by other stoppering products.
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