Put a Cork in It

At our house, we joke that we'll really know that we truly are in deep economic trouble when we have to drink wine from a box. Thankfully, we're not there yet, but there are other worries.  Like what to do with all those corks.

(I really dislike the plastic jobbies. They are difficult to get out of the bottle, impossible to get back in, and, well, they're just trash.  The metal screw tops are OK, but relatively few wineries use them.)

For a long while I would throw corks in the green bin - it's tree bark, after all - and they became compost.  That was better than the trash can.  And sometimes I would take them over to the East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse for someone else's artistic pleasure (There are lots of ideas for projects using corks, but I'm not about to do any of them.  I mean, corks through the blender? Really?).

Now there are more options for their re-use.  ReCORK will help turn your old corks into sandals (by SOLE), if you drop them off at one of their many participating partners around the country, including BevMo! locations.  And Cork ReHarvest has set up drop-off locations throughout the country for corks, including the entire chain of Whole Foods grocery markets.

And if you really want to wake-up in a WineLand fantasy (and I don't mean a wicked hang-over.  For that, consider Blowfish, where our friend Erin Anderson works), imagine an entire (tiny) living space made out of cork.  The Portuguese designer Gabriela Gomez has created such a space.  And she should care: Portugal is the largest producer of corks in the world.  (Believe me, it's worth the bother: the cork oak forests of the Mediterranean are among the loveliest places on the planet that I have ever been.)

If nothing else, you can always have a contest as to how long the corks wait in the car. They are patient: I have one bag which has been on the back seat since last December. Maybe this week...