Real Cork or Synthetic?

March 8, 2008 at 1:09 pm (Thoughts, Winemaking, Winemaking Tips) (cork, corking wine, neocork, nomacork, real cork, supreme corq, supremecorq, synthetic cork, wine closures)

This is a bit of an issue for the home winemaker. Most of the corks you can purchase at the supply store are made up of tiny bits of cork all pressed together (called agglomerated). The same way chicken scraps are pressed together to make chicken nuggets. These are the bottom of the barrel as corks go. Wineries that still use corks only use the corks made from a single piece of the cork oak bark, not pressed bits. You can get the agglomerated corks for about 20¢ a piece. The winery quality corks are more like 75¢ each. I have personally found that agglomerated are more prone to leakage and tainting of the wine.

Did you know that the wine industry has about 5% loss of wine due to cork spoilage. That means one in twenty bottles. Imagine that one out of twenty cans of soda was no good when you opened it. Those kinds of losses are just not acceptable. Cork spoilage or cork taint is caused by a fungus found in cork. Now you know why so many of the wineries have switched to either synthetic corks or screw tops. Don’t laugh, it’s the high end wines that are making the switch to metal screw tops, corks are on their way out.

I’ve been buying synthetic corks for some time now. They cost about 20¢ each in bulk (in lots of 1000) and they have some added advantages. First, they don’t have a problem with cork spoilage. I love that I don’t have to lay bottles down or invert them. Synthetic corks don’t have to stay wet, they are just as happy sitting right-side up. They can also be stored for a very long time before use, there is no issue with the humidity level of synthetic corks. You don’t have to soak them or sulfite them, just grab a cork and seal the bottle.

There is one down side to synthetics, in particular to the home winemaker. If you have one of those hand corkers, you are not going to enjoy trying to insert them into your bottles. You can’t create enough pressure by hand to squeeze the cork down while inserting it in the bottle. You need a floor corker.

There are a few name brands out there; Nomacork, Neocork, Supreme Corq. I’ve been very happy with synthetic corks, I have absolutely no reason to look back.

If you are curious, the process of making corks is rather fascinating. Do a Google search for “harvesting cork.”