100% Cork Petition

Recently, we began a partnership with Apcor, the Portugese Cork Association in order to incite consumers towards pressuring American winemakers to use exclusively natural cork in their bottles. We found that a lot of questions people had were based on misconceptions about cork and how it is produced.

This was even further amplified by discussions on the facebook wall. So seeing as how this is the most talked about portion of our adventure to evangelize the sustainability & natural properties of cork and the cork forest ...here are the best tidbits that one should take away:

1. The bark is sustainably harvested--cork oak trees are not harmed or cut down to produce corks.

2. The cork forests of Portugal are the second largest bio-gem in the world, after the Amazon rainforest.

3. Cork naturally sequesters carbon--CO2 emissions are 24x higher for screwcaps and 10x higher for plastic stoppers than natural cork.

And that's just the beginning. A number of the employed workers in Portugal harvested this bark have been families there for years, supported by the industry the forest provides. If you want to find out more, and sign our petition to let the wine industry know that we really care if they are putting artificial closures in our wine--go to the petition site.

I personally am an experienced wine drinker, and with the variety that I have come to consume over the years, I never really thought too much about the closure, unless it was really annoying to get it back in the bottle. But when I began to get really close to our new partner in cork, I found myself feeling unfairly duped by the high-quality wines I was purchasing. Wine producers that didn't seem like the type to cheapen anything about their product, were skimping on the little topper. What a first impression. Awesome. Even with something like Cheese Whiz, I know it's fake cheese--it's pretty obvious its cheese in a can that will come out as this plasticky cheese fake product, and I'm more or less ok with that. But with a fine quality wine that I am probably justifying the price to myself with the rationalization that I know it will make for a good night at least, just leaves a gummy plastic plop on my counter, I get a little sad.

And I understand the reasoning for the artificial closure, sure, it's all about money. That's it. So therefore, producers who make this choice only ever do so because the (not too major) cost difference outweighs the environmental cost, the quality cost, and the social cost. So it's priorities people. And when I started to think about it, the only thing some of these producers valued more or in equal to the small amount of $, was image. When consumers were turned off by the "image" of a producer who bottled with cheapy screwcaps, that kept them in the cork. But now, people are more comfortable with it, so screwcaps abound and are increasing in number steadily. Since we know that image is a driver, its time to use it to our advantage. The "image" of a company that cares about sustainable practices & environmental impact and has the respect to do so for its consumers regardless of a small cost to their business should be rewarded. And those that continue to hide their stinted priorities behind the foil ...well, funny thing is the power is with me ...the person who has an open tab at the local wine store.