

How Plastic Popped the Cork Monopoly  - grellas
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304172404575168120997013394.html?mod=WSJ_LifeStyle_Lifestyle_5

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iclelland
This is a novel use of the word "monopoly" -- There are currently (from the
article) over 600 natural cork producers, and yet a single company, gaining
20% market share, with what looks like nearly 100% of the synthetic cork
market, is somehow the one who "broke" that "monopoly"?

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teaspoon
I think the title refers to cork's monopoly as a bottle seal rather than any
particular producer's monopoly on cork.

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Sindisil
Great quote:

"Even though we're a pure cork company, my motto is you sell what your
customer wants and not what you want to sell..."

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sailormoon
Bah, there's no need to use cork to seal wine anyway. A few years ago the
entire Australian wine industry moved _en masse_ to screw-top bottles and you
know what? It's better. Sure, it felt a bit cheap at first, but there's no
spoilage, you don't need a corkscrew, and the bottle is easily resealable.
Give me a screw top any day. We don't use cork to seal anything else, and for
good reason; it's an antiquated, inferior option which exists now only for
marketing purposes.

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r0s
For that matter all wine should be in aluminum or plastic bottles to prevent
breaking and cut down on weight.

Also all that so called 'winemaking' is a huge waste of time and energy.
Almost any wine flavor can be synthesized in the lab and added to neutral
grain spirits. Many wines already add flavoring of all kinds, it's only a
matter of convincing those obsolescent luddites that full synthetic is just as
good. ;P

