What actually happens when Wine Gets 'Corked' | Food Unwrapped

Most people know that when wine is 'corked' it's ruined... but why? What is the science behind a cork's ability to spoil wine.
Food Unwrapped Season 7 Episode 3
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Our team of intrepid presenters (Jimmy Doherty, Kate Quilton, Matt Tebbut, Helen Lawal, Andi Oliver, Amanda Byram and Briony May Williams) travel the world uncovering unusual, intriguing and surprising secrets behind the food we eat.
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[@raaedravo]

The tour guide wearing a hair net is the most ironic thing I've seen on this channel

[@balsosnell2064]

He has hair on the side of his head which you can see clearly.

[@raaedravo]

Sorry to bother you but that was clearly a joke

[@balsosnell2064]

@@raaedravo Well, you know what they say about having to explain them …

[@raaedravo]

@@balsosnell2064 because idiots don't get them

[@markiangooley]

I’m told that when wine makers save reference bottles of each vintage, they use steel and plastic bottle tops, never corks nowadays. I’d be fine if corks were not used to seal wine bottles.

[@mcgibs]

I've had wine that was corked so badly it had splotches of fungal growth on the inner walls of the bottle. You'll never see it until you've poured some. I was very inexperienced at the time and wondered why it smelled so weird and it tasted like watered down prune juice with some raisins blended in.

[@priestesslucy3299]

So what you're saying is that organic cork doesn't 'cork' wine

[@jovanweismiller7114]

My wife will be overjoyed at this!!!

[@psychosoma5049]

Jimmy is absolutely beautiful. You can tell hes muscular but has a lovely kind face too. I think i love him.....

[@princesspeaches5067]

Why does a bald guy needs to wear hairnet?

[@Kenmanhl]

I'm only guessing here: dandruff?

[@Eichhornchen14]

fashion

[@HereticDuo]

He identifies as someone with hair.

[@huubje]

Smaakt naar KURK!

[@iamanidiotbut5523]

Isn’t it obvious that corking your wine makes it corked? Lol

[@dadewhite120]

Corked wine was good but I guess not

[@SeeNickView]

I hope this myth about TCA leaching into wine quenches itself sooner rather than later. I have seen more and more wine brands use twistable bottle caps, which are of themselves multi-material composites. They, like plastic ABS bottle caps on glass bottles, lower recyclability rates of wine bottles. I'm not even sure you could recycle the caps by themselves. I suppose it isn't much worse than the multi-material wrappings even corked wine bottles have around them that display brand logos, organic logos, etc. Those are primarily aluminum, so I suppose the recycling rate would be better there if recycled in bulk. Cork on the other hand is natural, in some cases renewable, and can return to the soil if composted correctly. Had a conversation with a server at my local Italian restaurant (in the US) and he noted that a lot of the more expensive wine brands from Italy are starting to use bottle caps than cork. Hope it doesn't continue!

[@Dragon1276]

Cork uses a ton more energy than plastic in its production. It’s not always about the end product, you have to look at the production as well.

[@zelareka]

Cork is biodegradable, dont use plastic !

[@Dragon1276]

Cork uses a ton more energy than plastic in its production. It’s not always about the end product, you have to look at the production as well.

[@fridgemagnet9831]

Just use inert plastic

[@diulikadikaday]

But that’s also not sustainable. Cork is biodegradable and compostable. I’m not saying i have all the answers, but I think there are competing interests here too.

[@grantadamson3478]

Lets not add to the plastic proliferation problem.

[@fridgemagnet9831]

@@diulikadikaday cork uses water, fertilizers, and uses electricity to process. Plastic has a lower footprint here. It's like the paper or cotton bag opposed to a plastic bag, plastic has a lower impact than the others

[@diulikadikaday]

@@fridgemagnet9831, do you have any research on that? I don't doubt you, but that's fascinating to think about. does the footprint of plastic include the resources needed to extract the oil? In New Zealand, 80% of our power is naturally generated so I would expect that cork from NZ (if such a thing exists) wouldn't have a high footprint.

[@fridgemagnet9831]

@@diulikadikaday well cotton tote bags are worse for the environment, which is no intuitive but some daninish done the study, I have no idea whether the plastic or cork process has a bigger impact.