Word: corks
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...cork industry has been scrambling to pick up the pieces. Amorim, the world's largest cork-stopper producer, based in Portugal, where more than 30% of the world's cork is grown, has invested $58 million in improving its operations since 2000. But there are more than 600 cork producers in Portugal alone, and quality control is a challenge. "My enemy is not an [aluminum] wine-stopper," says Carlos de Jesus, Amorim's marketing and communications director. "My problem is a cork stopper that ends up at your table tomorrow and it could stink. The guy making bad quality stoppers...
Likewise, humans have lent the cork crop a big helping hand. The cork oak tree, whose thick, regenerating bark is shaved off to make cork, covers about 10,400 sq. mi. (2.7 million hectares) in its native Mediterranean habitats of Portugal, Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Italy, Tunisia and France. Yielding cork oaks aren't ever cut down; once a decade or so, their thick bark is harvested in huge strips from the trunk of the tree. Today, the survival of cultivated cork forests, many of which are on private land, depends on their worth. If nobody is buying cork, landowners will...
Enter the conservationists. As wineries began ramping up experimentation with new closures, WWF launched a program in 2004 encouraging consumers to "choose cork" to protect the forests, the biodiversity they support and the thousands of rural jobs they create. The organization estimates that the cork industry employs roughly 100,000 people today, some 37,000 of which are directly involved in harvesting. In a May 2006 report, "Cork Screwed?," WWF suggests that if the wine market continues to grow and cork demand continues to decline, the number of harvesters could drop to about 2,400 by 2015, and leave...
...Cork advocates are also hoping their cause will benefit from consumers' recent green awakening: the WWF has hooked up with the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), an international group that promotes good forest management and gives well-managed forests and their products a stamp of approval. This fall, the first FSC-certified corks will appear on the U.S. market from Willamette Valley Vineyards in Oregon. The tactic may very well appeal to screwcap-averse American wine drinkers. In a 2004 study, 62% of Americans surveyed said "cheap" was the first word that came to mind when they thought about screwcapped wines...
Screwcap proponents would argue that cork?s unpredictability has driven this trend. Taint is part of this, but so is another factor: oxygen. A typical wine cork contains millions of air-filled cells, but because every cork is different, some winemakers think they cause inconsistent aging of the wine. Screwcaps let in less air, and since their cellular composition is man-made, adopters like Bonny Doon say the caps offer a more controlled oxidation process that allows wine to age as the winemaker intended. (Plastic corks, meanwhile, still control a larger corner of the alternative-stopper market than screwcaps...