Put a Cork in it!

Interesting article about the wine industry's move away from cork stoppers and its effect on an entire ecosystem.

http://magazine.audubon.org/features0701/habitat.html

Excellent article, thanks!

A very important habitat to preserve, I'd strongly encourage everyone to insist on cork stoppers in wine bottles.

Resin

Yes, I will certainly be looking for cork. I also might try to contact some of my favorite winemakers who are not using cork.

Victor

Corks are vastly inferior to metal screw-caps or crown caps as wine closures. Buy cork flooring instead if you want to encourage the industry. It's great stuff, if a tad pricey; you can also get some fairly nice laminate flooring with a top layer of cork, if you're on a budget.

By the way, anyone have cork oaks? It's supposed to be a lovely tree in the right zones.

Mark., considering buying some cork oaks, or maybe just the acorns

I agree, but will the increasing use of cork in flooring possibly offset the loss in wine stoppers?

Willis

Looks like I overtyped ya gooley.

Willis

Some one said "Corks are vastly inferior to metal screw-caps or crown caps as wine closures."

Anyone who says that corks are inferior to screw caps or plastic corks is probably the person you see drinking wine through a straw, as if it were grape juice. People who appreciate wine understand that wine improves with age, and that this can only happen if the wine is sealed with a cork. Screw caps prevent the micro-oxidation that allows young wines to mature into great wines. Even an inexpensive wine can improve dramatically in a short amount of time, if bottled with a cork --- however if sealed in by a screw cap, no improvement can take place.

As to cork flooring, does anyone know how durable it is? Is it waterproof enough for use in a kitchen?

Yes, it makes a great kitchen floor. It could easily last twenty or thirty years.

There are some neat pictures on Google showing the process of removing the bark.

I must admit that I have been buying the boxed wines (don't laugh!). My reason for doing so is because we don't have a local glass recycling facility, and I hate to put all those glass bottles in the trash. Hopefully in a few years I'll be able to start making my own Muscadine wine, so maybe I do need to start collecting some bottles.

Hmmmm... okay, maybe I'm ignorant about wine, but note that when winemakers save bottles for reference from each vintage, they don't seal them with corks but with metal caps. (That's what I've read in wine magazines, anyway.) Okay, they're trying for consistency, and for reference samples rather than wines to sell or enjoy, and maybe they're sacrificing subtle yet vital improvements that might make the difference between a good wine and a great one. I don't know.

I confess that I drink more $6/magnum wine than $6/bottle, and spend more than $20/bottle only on special occasions (and on certain dessert wines, when I've been known to blow $50/375ml). I'll trade any improvement that a cork provides against the vast numbers of corked bottles I've opened, thanks. (Maybe I need to find better wine merchants, drink less plonk, or both.) Serious wine lovers, feel free to deride. Most of what I drink is more likely to be ruined by a bad cork than improved by a good one.

So the high-grade cork for wine corks will make or break the industry? Ouch. I note that a lot of the cork flooring I see is made from bits and pieces; I wonder if there'd be any market for cork tiles that are all one piece and have interesting patterns.

I forgot to order Quercus suber seedlings again. Maybe I can get acorns.

Mark., need a new straw for this box Merlot I'm drinking, excuse me...

Can cork flooring be used as a raft as sea levels rise??

You can't slide across cork flooring in your socks. Causes nasty falls.

Scott

Ive seen cork oaks growing around Santa Barbara. One woman rescued a cork oak that had been cut down by the highway department. She had it installed in her greenhouse and used it to hang orchids, staghorn ferns and tuberous begonias. the year I met her, the oak had struck roots. the biggest cutting I ever heard of! I think they are a dry mediterranean climate tree.