Synthetic wine corks: a trend towards the future

The price for synthetic versus cork bark can be enticing, Anderson said. Wineries pay about 10 to 12-cents for a Supreme Corq stopper. Tree cork comes in five different grades and range in price between 4-cents for the low-grade cork, up to 50-cents for high-grade tree cork.

Anderson also points to the shortage of tree cork, adding that it is a finite resource.

Articulate and passionate about preserving wine, Anderson spent years in the industry, working for E & J Gallo (the world's largest producer of wine) and United Distillers and Vintners. He has 20 years of consumer marketing and wine and beverage industry experience. He believes the synthetic cork is the most significant development in the beverage industry in years. His assertion is backed by a recent Wine Spectator survey.

Synthetic corks have a few quirks. Sometime extraction of the synthetic stopper can be difficult. Sometime the seal is hard to break. And, Anderson admits there are questions about how well wine will age with an artificial closure. But, he says the questions are being researched.

"This is a relatively new industry and we don't have all the answers right now," Anderson said. "Like everyone else, we're also looking down the road."

In spite of all the advances in technologies, wine industry experts say changing to plastic is a marketing problem, like returning to screw tops (which are also free of TCA). Consumers think of plastic as an image problem and some fear that the artificial corks will impart its own taste to the wine. Screw tops are associated with low-quality, cheap wine-an image acknowledged by the wine industry.

Those using artificial stoppers place them in wines for short-term consumption, usually in a year, and mostly with white wine. According to industry experts, 90 percent of all wine is consumed within a year of release and often within 24 hours of purchase.

Cork Industry Working on Problems

Producers of tree cork acknowledge TCA problems, (although dispute the percentage of corked wines) and say things are improving. According to an article in Wines & Vines Magazine, cork producers are harvesting bark from higher up on the trees and avoiding chlorine washes which helps reduce the amount of TCA in wine corks. New coating technology is being developed and more money has been invested in research of the problem.

And, cork producers say they are putting much more attention on quality control than ever before.

"I'm absolutely sure that, with all the

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