In 2006 the WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) issued a thirty-four page report extolling the virtues of the cork industry and the profound positive effect it has on the environment. The report is incredibly detailed and covers the following topics:-

1. What is cork?

2. Where does cork come from?

3. Why are cork oak landscapes important?

4. Threats to the cork oak landscapes

5. Conclusions

6. Recommendations

There is one consistent, underpinning theme through out the document; “the cork industry is vital to the ecology and the economy, and without it, the following will happen:-

• Endangered species will die out

• Birds will lose their habitat

• Thousands of jobs will be lost

• Greenhouse gasses will increase – and the list goes on.

The bad guys in the story are artificial closures. According to the report, which uses fear, uncertainty and doubt to sow the scare tactic seeds; if these catch on and the cork industry drops volume, the cork industry will be in trouble and all sorts of catastrophic things will happen. (I may even go bald.)

Naturally enough, the cork industry would be delighted to see such a report as it basically states that the world cannot do without this industry, but being a cynic, I can only wonder if the cork industry, or one of its members has made a sizable donation to the WWF. The cork industry has been known to be very generous in its entertainment. It frequently puts on junkets to Spain for journalists in an endeavour to have the influential industry heavyweights do their selling.

I honestly don’t know if the cork industry was behind this report, either covertly or overtly, but the report is very convenient for the industry.

The increase in the market share of alternative wine stoppers, specifically plastic stoppers and screwtops, could reduce the economic value of cork lands therefore leading to conversion to other uses, abandonment, degradation, and finally loss of one of the best and most valuable examples of a human–nature balanced system.”

As stated previously, the article uses a lot of hypothetical doomsday propositions to support its importance.

“Champagne stopper production will be consolidated at an updated facility in the north, to be known as Amorim Champagne, capable of producing 450 million closures a year. This represents a massive 70 per cent increase in supply of the popular SPARK® and ChampCork® brands to meet continuing strong demand for Amorim product.

As the US wine industry expands so too is Amorim’s position in the market with sales of nearly 450 million corks in 2005 — an increase of 10 per cent on the previous year.

Amorim Cork South Africa celebrates its 25th anniversary this year. In that time it has distributed more than one billion corks to South African wineries. Today, the company continues to grow with the country's burgeoning wine industry and is recognised as one of its most active supporters.”

So demand for wine corks is still growing, despite the increase in acceptance of alternative closures.

 The WWF then goes onto say:-

“The wine industry needs to demonstrate its corporate responsibility by considering the environmental and socioeconomic values of cork – by choosing cork and promoting its use among customers.”

What the WWF does not realise or state is that the push to alternative closures came about for two reasons. Firstly, it was the appalling failure rate of corks and the cork industries inability to fix the problem that caused wineries to look to alternatives. The cork industry is root cause of the success of the alternative closure market. Secondly, the push and acceptance of alternative closures has not come from the industry itself, it has come from consumers and retailers who are sick and tired of the failure of corks to safely or consistently seal wine.

Finally the WWF has a suggestion for the cork industry when it states, “The cork industry needs to maintain and improve the quality of cork stoppers (addressing in particular the issues related to TCA and traceability) and communicating progress to the wine industry and consumers.”

Now that sounds fine and dandy, almost even-handed but let’s look at the whole picture but earlier in the WWF’s story it states:-

“Is TCA a cork-only related taint?

Traditionally this mouldy taint was termed corkiness or cork taint, therefore leading to the assumption that the cork stoppers were the responsible for its transmission to the wine. However the contamination may come from three sources (and their combination): the wine, the cork stopper, and the external environment. The presence of halogenated phenols is widespread in the natural environment due to their extensive use in pesticides, herbicides and sanitation materials. Wine may contain TCA or TCA precursors before bottling, and the contamination with haloanisoles may occur in the cellar environment, e.g. in wooden materials, as well as during storage and transport. Therefore tainted wine is also found in bottles with non-cork stoppers or in plastic packages”