Cork. It’s more than a detail.

By Stephanie Valponi, Blogher.com | October 11, 2014

I love wine tasting and learning about pairing it with certain foods. It’s so much fun giving my favorite wines as gifts and there’s just something so elegant about it.

A while back I posted a fun DIY about turning corks into coasters (you can check out the old post here). And believe me I am currently surfing Pintrest for my next project with my endless cork stash.

But besides crafting did you know the cork plays an important role in wine? I honestly never paid much attention, but natural corks vs. fake tops play an important role in the environment and quality of the wine.

Here are some fun facts that I learned:

Each cork stopper provides a carbon offset of 113.5g of CO2. This might seem small, but when multiplied by 30 million bottles of wine that are sold in the U.S. annually, the impact can be quite significant.

Cork is one of nature’s most sustainable products. There is no shortage of cork, nor are the cork trees cut down to make cork stoppers. In fact, the more that cork is used, the greater the incentive to maintain and plant more cork oaks.

Not only is it better for the environment but it also plays an important role when considering gift giving:

• The best wines in the world are all sealed with natural cork because it allows just the right amount of oxygen to interact with wine so that it ages properly;
• Wines sealed with natural cork at all price points are perceived to be of a higher quality than wines sealed with alternative stoppers, which is important to know when giving a bottle of wine as a gift.
• The iconic “pop” when a natural cork is removed from a bottle adds to the romance of the wine experience and cannot be replicated by the twisting of a metal screw cap or the removal of a plastic stoppers.

Read full article here.