Failure™ Magazine

Cork Screwed?

The satisfying pop of a cork is giving way to the crink-crank of a metal top.

Written by Vince Beiser   Filed under Life, Science & Technology

From the tasting rooms of Napa Valley to five-star restaurants—in fact, wherever wine is quaffed—the satisfying pop of a cork is giving way to the unglamorous crink-crank of a screw top. That’s upsetting not just to tradition-minded oenophiles, but to environmentalists as well.

Vintners have been sealing their bottles with corks since at least the 16th century. But corks often have a critical flaw: they sometimes give the wine a musty, moldy smell and taste. “It’s like wet cardboard,” says George M. Taber, author of the recently released ‘To Cork or Not to Cork: Tradition, Romance, Science and the Battle for the Wine Bottle’ (Simon & Schuster). Depending on which studies you believe, anywhere from three to 15 percent of all bottles with cork sealers turn up tainted.

This problem has been around for centuries, but took on new prominence after a Swiss chemist in 1981 discovered it was caused by corks, specifically those infected with a naturally occurring chemical compound called trichloroanisole (TCA). Around that time, world wine consumption also began to boom, driving up the prices of corks. As a result of both, winemakers began looking for alternative methods to close their bottles.

The first popular synthetic corks, made from plastic, debuted in the early 1990s. Screw tops, which have been used by cut-rate labels like Gallo since the 1950s, soon began catching on for higher-end vintages. Both promised to not only eliminate cork taint, but were generally cheaper. The results have been dramatic in the $4 billion wine stopper industry. Two decades ago, nearly all wine bottles were sealed with natural corks; today, the figure is around 80 percent.

Synthetic corks are still the most widely-used alternative, but easy-to-use screw caps are catching up fast—and not just for the corner-store plonk they’re usually associated with. Half of all Australia’s wines and nearly all of New Zealand’s are now sold with screw tops. Bottles from high-end outfits like Napa’s PlumpJack Winery and Inman Family also sport screw caps.

But for once, the old way of doing things turns out to be better for the environment. Cork is admirably renewable, recyclable and biodegradable. It is made from the bark of cork oak trees, which is peeled off in huge strips about once every ten years and then grows back. A typical cork oak can continue producing usable bark for up to 200 years.

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