PAGE 32 • May 2020
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Tales from the Vine
by STEVEN CASSANDRA LAY HARRINGTON
Corks Can Live Long After the Wine is Gone Being an ecologically minded consumer just isn’t about the vineyard. It seems that the wine industry is betting on consumers wanting and appreciating grapes grown in a prescribed manner that allows for designations such as: sustainable, Biodynamic, green, organic or natural. As if grapes aren’t the only component of winemaking to come under the long arm of the “wine police”, the winery gets special attention in such things as their use of renewable energy (wind and solar), recycling water, fermentation additives and closures; yes closures. Have you ever thought: What is the after-life of a cork? Well there is one. There is a whole new industry that has cropped up in America that recycles, repurposes and otherwise disposes of used cork. You thought you were helping the planet by throwing your used corks in that glass jar only to occasionally look through them to remember that special wine. Cork re-purposing is bucking a recycling trend. In an article re-published in “Salon”, au-
Is there an after life for a cork? Yes, yes there is! thor Anna Sanford writes that recycling in California is down approximately 5 percentage points and recycling centers are closing primarily since recycled materials such as plastic bottles are less valuable due to the price of oil--plastic is a derivative of oil. But recycled cork is booming. One organization that is focused on repurposing cork for the good of the planet is a non-profit forestry organization-Cork Forest Conservation Alliance, (CFCA) which operates Cork ReHarvest. Cork is an interesting product because a tree is never cut down for the cork. Corks are made from the bark, which is hand harvested, every 9-11 years. The trees can be harvested for up to 150 years, with no harm to the tree. The cork tree is from the oak family, (Quercus suber) so the cork will impart some of the same characteristics as does an oak barrel. From an environmental viewpoint, the carbon footprint to produce a cork is significantly less than that to produce a metal screw caps or plastic plug closure for wine. With convenient recycling methods for the consumer, the carbon footprint for re-purposing used wine corks, through the Cork ReHarvest program is virtually zero. Also, there are no active recycling programs for screw caps or plastic plugs in the U.S. There are 13 billion wine corks produced each year, with 51% of the wine corks coming from Portugal and 30% coming from Spain. Cork is natural, non-toxic, biodegradable and is a totally renewable product for the wine industry. The same cannot be said for aluminum screw caps and plastic closures. In making a cork for a bottle of wine there are approximately 26 steps and in an environmental study by “The Academic Wino”, cork is the hands down best closure from an ecological perspective. Life Cycle Assessment, (LCA) studies show that each cork sequesters 9g of CO2. According to Wikipedia, a carbon footprint study concluded that cork is the most environmentally friendly wine stopper in comparison to metal or plastic. The Corticeira Amorim study, (“Analysis of the life cycle of Cork, Aluminum and Plastic Wine Closures”), was developed by PricewaterhouseCoopers, following ISO 14040 standards. Results
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Different looks for cork flooring
