The recent report on Decanter of the cork industry’s blatant attempts to push your environmental buttons provoked pithy outrage in the comments. The comments are required reading to complete the article, and satisfyingly mirror my own more unedited response. These are nothing more than death struggles by a former monopoly, which did serious damage to the industry it claimed to serve and is now paying for it. At the same time I have to wonder – why all this heat and light about a bottle stopper? Corks were a step up from rags, a piece of tree used to seal amphorae containing liquids. Surely we can move on from there - take advantage of improvements in packaging since the 1st century BC; employ reason to assess the effectiveness of what is merely a vessel; and reserve our emotions for the wine itself, a much more responsive and deserving object of our affection.
And put cork where it belongs – on our floors or how about on the soles of our shoes?
