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Good cap, bad cap
Want to help preserve Mediterranean ecosystems? Buy corked wine.

By

Stephanie Rogers
Tue, Jun 02 2009 at 5:02 AM
 6

Related Topics:

Organic & Sustainable Wine

(Photo: MaryCribben/Flickr)

 
There's been a lot of talk lately about the eco-friendliness of various types of wine closures. When word got out a few years ago that 70 percent of the world's cork is used in wine production, many environmentalists began to worry that demand for cork products was putting a huge strain on the world's few remaining cork forests. For a while, plastic and glass alternatives were heralded as a greener choice — but as wineries made the switch, cork forests in Portugal, Spain and other Mediterranean countries actually began to suffer.
 
In the Coruche district of Portugal, cork oaks are vital to an entire ecosystem and actually help stave off devastating effects of global warming. Their roots hold the soil together, preventing it from being washed away during the deluges that often come after weeks of no rain in this hot, extreme climate. Cork forests contain a diverse array of life, including animals, birds and insects that aren't found anywhere else in the world. Some wildlife depends on the cork forests for survival, including the Iberian lynx, the Barbary deer and the Egyptian mongoose.
 
If people stopped buying cork, these forests would disappear: Demand for cork products is what keeps them protected from conversion to other uses, abandonment and degradation. People care for the forests because they're vital to the local economy. According to a 2006 World Wildlife Fund report (PDF), loss of commercial demand for cork puts Mediterranean cork oak landscapes at risk of intensified forest fires, loss of irreplaceable biodiversity, accelerated desertification and economic crisis.
 
So if there are so few cork oak forests left in the world, how is demand not causing problems with overharvesting? Cork is a highly sustainable resource when properly managed. A single tree can live hundreds of years, and after each harvest — every nine years or so — the cork, which lies just under the bark, grows back several centimeters thick. Not a single tree is cut down during the harvest — a delicate process that requires highly skilled workers to painstakingly cut the bark with sharpened axes.
 
A recent independent study by PricewaterhouseCoopers found that the preservation of cork forests isn't the only reason natural cork wine stoppers are more eco-friendly than plastic and aluminum screw-cap alternatives. Researchers found that plastic stoppers result in nearly 10 times more greenhouse gas emissions than natural cork during a 100-year period. Aluminum screw caps are responsible for 24 times more emissions during the same time frame. Natural cork is also biodegradable and recyclable.
 
"Cork taint" is often used as a rationale for replacing natural cork with synthetic alternatives, but tainted wine is also found in bottles with noncork stoppers or in plastic packages. Taint, caused by the presence of 2,4,6-trichloroanisole, leads to undesirable smells and tastes but is harmless. Screw caps and synthetic corks can also be prone to another aroma taint called sulphidisation, which is caused when the reduced oxygen supply concentrates sulphurous smells that come from preservatives in the stopper or cap.
 
Ultimately, winemakers will heed consumer preferences when it comes to choosing wine bottle closures, so it's up to all of us to request natural cork stoppers. Antonio Ferreira, who has been a landowner and cork farmer in Coruche for many years, emphasized the importance of the cork retaining economic value in an interview with the BBC last year.
 
"It's not just a tree we are trying to protect here. It is a whole environment," Ferreira said. "The forest you see around you now has been like this for hundreds of years. It is meant to be this way."
 
(MNN homepage photo: Storyvillegirl/Flickr)
 

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Comments: 6
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anonymous
Carlos de Jesus... Jun 12 2009 at 2:50 AM
The posts by UCD Wino suggesting that the PricewaterhouseCoopers life cycle analysis of closures was skewed in favour of cork are wrong. Indeed, the opposite is true. In line with ISO 14040 and 14044 standards, the least favourable scenario for the promoter of the study (Corticeira Amorim) was taken at all times. And, the analysis did account for the use of a PVC capsule that typically covers the top of a bottle sealed with a natural cork. But even more importantly, and something that — perhaps
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not surprisingly — UCD Wino fails to mention, the analysis did not consider the environmental impacts associated with the crucial process of transforming aluminium into screwcaps and raw materials into plastic stoppers. The study underwent a critical review by three independent entities and the results clearly demonstrate that natural cork is the best wine closure in terms of environmental performance. On the subject of wine taint, the incidence of musty taint associated with cork has been dramatically reduced in recent years following extensive research into the issue and the introduction of enhanced production processes. Today the wine industry is recognising the value of natural cork on both environmental grounds and its superior performance as a wine seal.
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anonymous
UCD Wino Jun 10 2009 at 5:02 PM
I do believe that the PWC report contains bias twoards their client, but it doesnt need to be a "conspiracy" its just a bias. You can buy the facts you want on the open market. This is why peer-review is essential, and unfortunatley, carbon lifecycle assessments are such large complex calculations that require a LOT of assumptions, it's easy to misuse them, or to fail to portray reality. Either way, the flaws I pointed out about this study in my previous post are very real, and the bias is against
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the screwcap. I think that it is a mistake to play into the trap that these producers cant avoid cutting their forrests down. If they really cared about the environment, then this wouldnt be an issue. The fact that it is only shows that their concern for their forrest is only secondary to their care for their bottom line, which at the end of the day, is the same as not caring at all. Don't drink the greenwash.
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anonymous
Concerned about... Jun 02 2009 at 8:27 PM
I think UCD Wino is mistaken in his take on this issue. For one, it is really quite doubtfull that Pricewaterhouse Coopers is involved in some kind of conspiracy with the cork industry of the Mediteranean, but the aforementioned commenter probably realises this already. Also, expecting cork companies to allow themselves to continue buisnesses at thier own financial peril as may be the case if the Mediteranean cork industry were to lose more customers to plastic or screw bottle caps is not a realistic
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answer to the problem of ecologically at risk ecosytem protection, but the commenter should already know that too. The Iberian Lynx and other at risk species are clearly better off with a healthfull cork industry that is not impeded by the promotion of cheap and reckless altermatives which do not favour the sustainability of our planets' precious ecological heritage. It is not only up to the members of the Mediteranean"s cork producers to preserve these ecosystems, it is up to us all.
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anonymous
UCD Wino Jun 10 2009 at 5:10 PM
I agree that this ecosystem should be protected, but I do think that guilting people into buying wine with a flawed closure is not the right way to do that. The indepentant (not coming from the cork companies) data about cork contamination is that it happens between 5% and 7% of the time. Additionally, 45% of all corks fail the pressure test for gas leakage. the estimated result is $10 Billion worth of ruined wine ruined every year. $10 billion a year could go a LONG way to preserving the cork
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forests. It would be much more efficient to preserve these forests and the Lynx DIRECTLY than to ask for it to be paid in the form of ruined wine bottles in the hands of the consumer.
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anonymous
Kringle Jun 02 2009 at 8:07 PM

If you don't want the cork from the wine you just opened, don't throw it away!! I have a DIY design for which I will need to compile a stock of corks.

For more information, email to:

Corks@Rabbit-Hole.net

Yours in the Spirit of Gifting!

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anonymous
UCD Wino Jun 02 2009 at 6:37 PM
The eco-advantage of cork is merely greenwashing on behalf of the cork companies. If you take a look at the lifecycle analysis done by price waterhouse, there are a lot of flaws that oddly enough, skew heavily in favor of the cork. PWC obviously knows who is signing their paycheck. Examples: The report takes into account the carbon absorbed by the cork trees. Even in the peer review section of the report a reviewer called this inclusion "abusive" but the objection was overlooked. Would the cork
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trees be absorbing CO2 if the cork companies werent stripping off the bark? You bet. Would there be CO2 absorption if the trees were cut down and another crop planted? Yep - maybe even more. Also, the report didnt include the environmental impact of the foil capsule that goes over the cork. With screwcaps, there is no foil needed. So that skews the attempt to make a direct comparison also. This is a great example of why we need to be wary about lifecycle analysis: it is so complicated, and so involved, that it is easy to manipulate the assumptions used to further your own agenda. We need to object LOUDLY when this is found. Back to those trees and the ecosystem. What happens to those trees if we stop buying cork? Nothing if the cork companies don't cut them down! The issue of deforestatoin on the iberian peninsula is one that is only tangentially related to the use of corks in wine bottles. The argument that cork forrests will vanish if we dont buy corks in my view is a form of eco-extortion How about that ultra-endangered Iberian Lynx? Screwcaps arent killing it. Destruction of it's habitat by apartment buildings, along with a lack of prey because the Portugese introduced a virus to kill off the rabits that the Lynx feeds on. If the Lynx goes extinct, the blood is on portugese hands - not ours. Corks ruin 10 billion dollars worth of wine per year. It is up to the portugese if they want to cut their forrests down, or drive their lynx to extinction in favor of apartment buildings, but that is a price they cannot ask us to pay, and the very notion that they are playing the "green" card for self-interested purposes is enough to make me never want to use another cork again.
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