Word: wine
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Camp and bad French aside, the lighthearted marketing video articulates a watershed moment in the global wine industry: after hundreds of years of tradition, more and more winemakers are turning away from cork closures - and oenophiles are finally getting used to the idea. Bonny Doon, a boutique winery south of San Francisco, had used Portuguese cork for 19 years, but was losing 0.5% to 2% of its wine to "taint" - the unmistakably moldy or musty smell and taste of a contaminated wine, caused by a compound called TCA, which is sometimes found in cork. So, the winery decided to make...
Mediterranean cork producers would probably not appreciate his sentiment. Their product, which has been plugging bottles at least since the days of ancient Pompeii, has gone unchallenged for centuries as the world's favorite wine stopper. But like many long-lived gastronomic rites, the custom ran into trouble when globalization kicked into high gear. In the 1990s, world wine production exploded, and to meet demand, cork makers started shipping products that, to many, weren't up to snuff. Increased concern about cork taint led wineries like Bonny Doon to look for new ways to seal their wares. Between...
...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 is what we worry about." De Jesus says winemakers' strong reaction to cork after the taint...
...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 up to 75% of the Mediterranean's cork forest landscapes unmanaged and susceptible to threats like fires, overgrazing, and clearing...
...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. Americans - along with Canadians, Danes and Germans - have been slow to give up the "pop" of their wine-drinking experience. But in other countries, notably...