#568 Plastuck Cork

The other day I was opening up a bottle of wine. I reflected on how good I was getting at it and, before my brain had a chance to turn down some maudlin cul-de-sac of must-be-drinking-too-much worries, I congratulated myself on my developing skill at not breaking corks.
Which got me to looking at the cork in my hand. It was then that I noticed it was plastic.
Not just plastic though. Plastic printed on in such a way as to make it look like real cork.
To an ordinary wine drinker like me, the idea of going to all the elaborate trouble of camouflaging a cork seems pointless. It’s like putting a colorful pattern on the cotton in a vitamin bottle.
Who cares?
So I asked around and here’s the hearsay I’ve been able to gather.
Seems cork is a little rare. Wine bottle cork comes from the bark of a type of Spanish oak tree and world demand is driving up the price.
As long as a few oenophile snobs were the only people consuming wine, no problem. But ever since health nuts started recommending wine for everything from heart disease to weight loss to erectile dysfunction it’s been getting harder and harder to keep the cork in the bottle.
So the wine industry has been experimenting. Because it’s really a matter of survival.
Bottle sealing is a delicate enterprise. The wrong material expands too much and you can’t get the cork out. Other stuff shrinks and the bottle ends up having its seal breeched. On the plus side, plastic does minimize the possibility of “corking” where in rare circumstances the tree cork itself contaminates the wine.
But it turns out the best method out there for consistently providing a perfect wine bottle seal is¾hold on to your snooty noses¾ the screw cap.
Yep, proven protector of cheap muscatel and Mad Dog. And as every street wino can tell you, nothing like a screw cap can preserve the freshness and power, nay the insouciance, of a bold, muscular, and fortified wine.
Confirmation of one of my best mottos: When you want a survival tip, ask a bum.
America ya gotta love it