Corked & Uncorked: The Secrets of Wine’s Unsung Hero

[MUSIC] Well, hello and welcome to The Wine Access, unfiltered podcast. I'm sure a lot of you out there have opened a few bottles of wine in your time and you've probably done something that most of us do every time, which is throw away the cork. Never giving it a second look, maybe you'd checked it to make sure wasn't a little funky. Didn't have anything weird or smells or anything like that. I was the same way, but that changed last year when I met my guest on this episode, PJ, all the director of marketing and sales at Amrum Quark America. I have to tell you something, this is not a religious podcast, but this woman. She put my face on a cork. She took me on a tour and she straight up converted me to the Church of Quark. Now, here I am, a changed woman ready to convert all of you to the wonderful world of cork, which is a fascinating one and one that had so much more detail and nuance than I had ever imagined. But also a world that I didn't realize should have mattered to me as much as it did. Yes, cork is interesting and yes, we're going to talk about why it's interesting and all the different facets of it. But also, there's a lot of applicable things in our wine-drinking world that are cork-related and we just had no idea. So we're going to be going over all of those things like misnomers, including ones that I'm guilty of propagating myself, one in particular that will blow your mind that I'm sure a lot of you have thought was true for a very long time, but we're going to, we're going to, I'm telling you, we're going to blow your mind, stick around for that. And then also, I am going to ask PJ a question that I get all the time, which is what the heck do you do with the cork after it's done, spoiler alert? It's not a Christmas ornaments and it's not put them in that cork holder that you got at Homecodes. No shade, we love the cork holders, but like, you know, there's better uses for your corks. So please welcome to the show. My friend PJ. Oh, man, you can use cork for a thousand things. Cork is the coolest material in the world. It really is. I was very somewhere in New Amanda before I learned about cork. I had no idea how fascinating the world of cork is, what it was. It was just in between me and the wine. And now I will probably spend my life just learning about cork and talking about it. It's such a special material. You can do so many things with cork, not just a stopper, but earrings, shoes, you name it. Couple housekeeping things for those who are listening. Number one, we are not doing the normal format at this podcast today. We are we're skipping over the current events, the what's going on in the wine world. It's not happening, Jay. There's too much to cover. Number two, if you are drinking with us, which means you are a member of the wine access and filter podcast wine club, that means that you are drinking this wine right here. The Marcus, Nickelini Ranch carrying on. We're going to talk about this wine in a second. So if you haven't grabbed it already, grab it, pull the cork, but don't throw it away, because we're going to talk about the cork. Number three, this is definitely a show that I feel like is going to be better served on YouTube in video forms. You can kind of see all the different things that we're talking about. I'm going to show you cork examples. I'm going to throw some B roll up because PJ and I also, we did like a mecca thing. We went to Portugal to go see some cork trees last year. And not even last year, it was like six months ago. And we had such a great time. So I'm going to throw some footage up the cork trees. I'm going to throw some footage up of some of the production stuff that we saw. So if you're really curious, I definitely recommend heading over to the YouTube channel. Everything is going to be linked in the description below. And then as always, if you are not a member of the wine access and filter podcast wine club, this is your moment to rectify that. So you can join in the fun and you can drink with us. PJ is a great drinking companion. I know this from experience. 10 out of 10. No, no, it's highly recommend. Get some wine in your glass and let's make it the unfiltered podcast wine club wine. Yes. So I guess the first thing we'll start with the basics. What is cork? You're kind of talked a little bit about it being a tree, but cork is the bark of a tree. So this is a natural cork that you're popping out of this amazing caron, by the way, if you're enjoying this. And it is truly just a piece of bark. It's a hundred percent a piece of cork oak. And it's a special type of material. There's no other type of oak like a cork oak. It's very specific. It's quirk is super is the scientific name of this tree. And the way that you harvest cork is you can think a lot about like shearing a sheep. You remove the bark and you don't cut the tree down. So number one thing about cork, it's one of the most regenerative forms of agriculture that exists in the world. There's a lot of greenwashing about other closures or the sustainability pitch that cork is truly the most sustainable closure in the world. You don't harm the tree. And actually when you harvest cork, it makes the carbon sequestration of the cork two to five times higher when you harvest the bark off the tree. Which is sustainable. So while you're opening a bottle of wine and you pull out a cork, you are doing good for the world. So you're saving the world when cork at a time. It's kind of cheesy but true. No. I think you have a picture of the bark or a deal example of the bark. But so this cork literally gets punched from that piece of bark. Ready? We're going to show everybody. Yes. So that is what a natural cork is. It's pretty incredible. So in order to get a natural cork, the interesting thing is you have to wait until the third harvest of the tree. Which takes how long PJ? The first time you will harvest the cork tree, the cork tree will be around 25 years old. And that will never go be thick enough for a natural cork. Those corks will be made into flooring, earrings, other applications, insulation. Then you wait nine years to harvest the second harvest. And that can make micro-granulated corks or sparkling corks but never a natural cork. And only until the third harvest, which is 43 years old, you will be able to punch a natural cork. So it is a long game industry. It's a very romantic industry. It's been around for a long time. 50% of the world's cork, around 50% is harvested and portable. And then around 30% in Spain and the rest in northern Africa, France. Italy, it's a very special harvesting process. The cork farmers are some of the highest paid farmers in the world. It's a really specialized agricultural work. It's passed down from generations. It's done by hand, by the way. It's done by hand. This is not a machine thing. Like these are guys that are climbing trees using letters shifting around. And like trees that are not just like uniform shape, like there's a lot of tree happening in lots of different positions and going in lots of different directions. Yes, a very complicated tool and axe is used from the farmers. It generally happens between May and August. So that's the harvest time. Generally people that harvest the cork, they say the tree has to give you its bark. It's a very romantic thing. How Portuguese? Yeah, it has to give you its bark. It has to be the right environment. It can't be too moist and it can't be too dry. The cork has to release from the tree. So it's something that if you haven't had a chance to see, you should definitely make it a point when you're in Portugal to go to the south of Portugal, central to south Portugal. It's where most of the cork forest are and see it. It's a very bucolic, wonderful place to go. I would love to just put a hammock in the cork forest and hang out there all day. It is a very special thing. Generally, all old school families that have owned these forests for years and years and years and it's really special. It is one of the coolest things I've ever seen. And I was looking forward to it for a long time. And seeing it in action, it's very, it's a very fast process, but it's also a very labor-intensive, very manual process. And you see those sheets of cork just coming off of the tree. And then you see them just laying there and you're like, wow, this is truly one of the most regenerative sustainable things. Because number one, you're fueling an ecosystem, just naturally that wants to be harvested. You're fueling an economy, right? You are also producing a very sustainable product. But also like, let's talk about the properties of cork itself and why it makes such a great stopper for wine and why it has been used for as long as it has. It's lightweight and it's impermeable liquids. And every cubic centimeter of a cork you're looking at 40 million cells. So it's pretty incredible. It's really hard to replicate. I'm sure at some point some scientific person could do that, but not at a cost that would be insane. Nature has a really amazing way of doing things. It floats. I'd mentioned it was impermeable to liquids. So speaking of a myth, a lot of people believe that cork's breath, a lot of the oxygen comes from the outside when you're eating the wine. But with the cellular structure of a cork, most of the oxygen that gets into your wine over the life of the wine will come from within the cork. So actually cork protects your wine from the outside environment, where a lot of other closures maybe can control oxygen transfer, but it's coming from the outside or it never stops. Whereas cork protects your wine if you've stored your wine in a stinky cellar for a long, long period of time, you can open these amazing wines and they're still just as beautiful as the day that you bottled them. They've just developed every time. with a phenolics of the line or of the cork. So it's pretty special. This was like a mind blown moment because in addition to seeing the trees and seeing the production, we sat down with you've got like a crazy lab and like a guy who does all your research. And that was one of the things that he went over and he sort of started in passing and I was like, "Wait, wait, wait, wait, back up, back up, back up." Because my whole life as a sommelier and in the wine industry was like this thing called oxygen transfer rate, which is the rate at what I thought was the oxygen was come, even though liquid was impenetrable, the oxygen was coming through the cork and that's the exchange it was happening within the actual bottle. But he said, "No, the most of the oxygen is actually coming from within the cells of the cork and that is the transfer that's happening. It is not from the outside world," which blew my mind. The other thing that he said, and this is another like fun fact that I think a lot of us are like within the last year, it's starting to, you can see it in the comments when people are talking about wine storage and how you should be storing your wine. My whole life, I have been told that I should be storing wine on its side. Why should I be storing wine on its side to keep the cork moist, to keep it from drying out? No, no, I was incorrect. Please correct me. If the storage conditions are proper and you have a good cellar temp and the humidity of the space is good, you can store the wine's upright or in its side, it doesn't matter because if the seal is proper on the glass and the cork, then the moisture of the head space between the cork and the wine will keep the cork completely moist. So it's 100% humidity there. So if the seal is properly done, it's not going to affect the humidity at all, whether it's on its side or not. So moisture really only matters for the time of bottling because it's all about being inserted and making sure the seal is done properly. More so than it is for long-term ageability. It's a really fun fact, but if you want, you know, if you want that red, that red bottom, you will need to have that connection between the wine and the cork, but in terms of long-term storage, with moisture of the cork, the cork should not dry out if you leave it upright. Yeah, that one like blew my mind because you see any cellar and like all the wines are lying down. And honestly, like for configuration standpoint and like space, like it makes sense, but the reason that we've all always been told to store it on its side was that the cork needs to be in contact with the wine. And that again was another like, "Psh, aren't you?" "An tradition, you know." It's very hard to move away from that once, you know, a study's done and. Totally. It's a really cool fact. So don't be worried if you're somebody that buys cases of this wine club or these wines and you just stack the cases on top of each other and don't have time to put them in on their side. It will be okay. The cork's won't dry out. You're not hurt, I mean, just to clarify, you're not hurting the wine or the cork for that matter by laying it aside. It was just this idea that you had to do that because of this interaction. That was like, that was one of those things that I was like, "Why is this not being shouted from the rooftops? I feel like this is brand new information in a world that rarely has brand new information." I loved learning from. I forgot what his name was, the researcher that we talked to. Dr. Cabral. Miguel Cabral. Miguel Cabral. That man, he's got all the info and like talk about a guy that has just truly spent his life like researching into things that I never knew needed researching. I could have sat there the entire day and just continue listening to him speak. It was amazing. It's incredible. I mean, Amaram is a company that has just dumped research decades of research for cork and all things cork. We're just curious and there's still so much research we don't know. And the really cool thing about research and being science-based is when we find out things that maybe we thought we had thought before. We thought the same thing about the auction and coming from outside. And then we said, "Oh, we were wrong." So that's the cool thing about science. Yeah. So it's pretty, it's pretty special and it's great to have him on the team. Yeah, really an amazing, amazing opportunity to speak with him. I know there's a lot of other research that is happening into the world of corks. But before we got there, you mentioned the wine club and I feel like we haven't appropriately started this podcast by tiering with their wine. I mentioned this is the Marcus carrying on from Bodai. Oh, it has a great nose. It's amazing. Yeah. I can just live in this. It literally smells like, you know, that period, well, you're in California right now. But like that period between like fall and winter, where like the leaves are just starting to like come off and it's like starting to smell a little cold outside. Like that's what this wine smells like. Like, it's not quite like mid fall. It's like right after where it just starts to get this chill. I know some of you out there like this woman isn't saying, I know. I'm a church girl. It's great. It's what's happening. I love it. Yeah. It's a really beautiful wine. Let me back up a little bit and tell you about the swine. So I assume you've been to Lodai at some point in your career. Of course. For those of you haven't been to Lodai, you know, this is a place that's, it's in California, it's in Northern California, it's closer like Sacramento. But it's a place that people a lot of times think of as a place you go to for like cheaper wines and bulk grapes. And what's crazy is when you visit this place, you realize very quickly that there is a shocking amount of small producers who are doing what Marcus is doing the producer of this wine, which is working with some of these, some of the oldest vines in the country. I mean, we're talking about vines that date back all the way to the 1800s. And what's super fascinating is that these are not like, you know, older is not always better, right? In terms of like how much they're producing with a producing, but in this case, like these are incredible old vines that produce a teeny tiny amount of grapes. The vines have to constantly be attended to. They have to be farmed by hand in most cases. Harvested by hand in most cases. And like I said, they're not like, it's not like they're making, you know, producing tons of grapes to give you this, this bountiful crop. So it sounds like a bankers were a nightmare, but it is the story of Lodi and some of these producers who really do this out of out of passion and for the love of the game. So you have producers like Marcus who are not only working with these old vines, but they're doing your working with grapes that like not a lot of people have even heard of and carrying on is one of them. It used to be one of the most widely planted grapes in California. It was one of those grapes that like got massively over produced for a time. And so it sort of lost its character in the process and people kind of forgot that like this is actually a really interesting grape. But you have some producers that are bringing it back as a solo variety because we oftentimes see it blended in. And I think this is a really, really beautiful example. This particular one, this is from the Nick Leney Ranch, this is plenty of the 1930s. You can smell like it's got this like spicy sort of savory character. It's definitely very fruity, but not in like a super aggressive way. Like it's kind of dark and brambly. I don't know. You know, this almost smells like if you took away some of the more like oxidative qualities that you get from port and like that sweet quality, it almost has like the darkness of a Portuguese red wine that you would have, right? Like dark, dark cherry. It's really just delicious. Yeah, yeah. It's really it's delicious. I had somebody message me recently who just like immediately popped the wine and like, oh my god, I know I should have waited for this show, but like I couldn't and I'm so glad because this is so delicious. They were so excited and I was like, you're right. Like this is like this is one of my favorite finds that we've had to date. So hopefully some of you are drinking this with us. I do have a slight chill on this as I normally do. This is a one that I think you could go either way depending on what glass you're going to use. This is in a burgundy bottle. So like a burgundy glass would definitely work for this. But it's got enough like character and body that if you wanted to put in a porto glass and kind of get a little bit feel like it's got a little bit more structure to it. You could do that as well. I'm using my all purpose Gabriel glass, which is lovely. You're using a burgundy. Yeah, we're having a great time. Yeah, it's great. And I have heard amazing things. I haven't had the opportunity to meet Marcus, but our awesome sales are up that works with him. Just loves them the pieces and yeah, has said amazing things about him and in all his wines and his technical abilities and he is according to her just an amazing guy and and a real big cork dork and a dork about all things wine, which we love working with people like that because he really cares about the quality and the wine. The wine's incredible. I mean, you can kind of tell a lot about a wine maker obviously by their art form. So totally. Yeah, and I think that's the story of Lodi in general is like there's just so many great people there and and it is like it is a sea of farmers and passionate people who really care about these old binds. And you've got Tegan working up there from Sam Lans and Turley. Yeah. Mindy and Michelle from Lorenzo working with there. All they do a little carrying on as well. They turn into their Lorenzo Rize. There's just there's so much great stuff happening there. And so I'm really excited. I think this is our very first wine that we featured from Lodi and I think I think we picked a pretty good one. If you pull the cork out of this bottle and you matched it with like another random cork that you maybe have from another maybe in your in your home goods vessel. I don't know. But if you grabs another another cork you'll see that like there's a difference in cork. Yeah. There's lots of different corks. And I think maybe where we can venture to next is all the different corks that are out there because we've all seen them. You know, you've got everything from like agglomerated to natural to a twin top different versions within those categories. Exactly. All right. So let's walk me through all the different types of corks out there and oh man. I know. I know. I'm about to like get you in the weeds, I'm sorry. - I would try to keep this as concise as possible because they're truly all different types of options for different wines. And really, Aeroam Stantts specifically is that, we have all different types of court closures and it's up to the wine maker. We have data and information and it's all up to the wine maker to make the decision of what's best for their wine. And they know best how they make their wines. So different auction transfers with different types of closures, different developments for your wine, depending on the closure that you choose. So here's the options, choose wisely kind of thing. But yeah, so we have a natural quirk, which is what Mark is choosing for this road. - Right, Mark is having a lot of work. - Which is Mark's has on here. - Yeah, which is 100% a bark of a tree. It's just a classic natural quirk. It's the most classic closure that exists. And then sparkling quirks, everyone has seen different types of sparkling quirks. - Which are different. So point out why these are different. 'Cause if you look, by the way, if you're looking at the YouTube video right now, you'll see that it doesn't look like a sparkling quirk because it's not been put into a bottle yet. So walk us through why this looks the way it does. It's got two pieces. - So another really cool thing, I think that's mind blowing for a lot of people. As people see, they pull a sparkling quirk out and they see a mushroom shape and they assume the quirk comes in that shape. But actually, it doesn't. It comes in this shape. And once you insert it into the bottle, the shape of the bottle and the pressure from the CO2 for the quirk will create that mushroom shape because you need more compression because of the pressure in the bottle. So they all look like this. I mean, again, there's three different types of sparkling quirks. Some producers, quirk producers will produce only one type. We have a array of different types, but you have a double disc, which is two natural disc on the bottom, which is the most traditional type of sparkling quirk. And then you have single disc sparkling quirks and then you have 100% microgranulated, which would be 100% that just look like the top here. And then you've got 100% microgranulated quirk, which is totally different than a classic natural quirk. There are a lot of different iterations of microgranulated quirks out there. People are very familiar with a lot of these. Our newest technology is export technology, which is the name of a cleaning type of cleaning technology. That's the most updated. Super critical CO2 technology on the market, not to get in the weeds, but essentially this type of technology has been around for a long time, not as much applied to quirk, but to turn coffee into decaf, things like that. And it completely extracts and removes TCA, which is quirk taint. Yes. The nickname is quirk taint. I don't like the nickname because you could find it in other things other than quirk. It's naturally occurring. You could find it in wood. That's Charles. Baby carrots. Baby carrots. Yes, you go to the grocery store. And I can't even buy them. There's always one. Yeah, there's always just, they wreak. But it's really neat because these are completely, the technology completely extracts a lot of those phenolics. It's a very neutral closure. Not all microgranulated quirks are created equal. It depends on the producer, but for us we're big on. The most amount of quirk in the quirk, why add anything else when you have the best material in the world, which is quirk. Let's zoom out a little bit. So we talked natural quirk, champagne quirk, which could be we agglomerated with the discs. And then we have agglomerated, right? Is that right? Agglomerated? Yes, micro agglomerated, really. Micro agglomerated. Which is what? So that's-- I'm holding up the experiment camera right now, which is a version of it. It's not always going to be this. But what is a micro-- What is it? OK. Micro agglomerated. It's quirk material that is unit molded. Natural quirk. Natural quirk. Natural quirk. Natural quirk. Yes, so OK. When you punch a natural quirk, you have a lot of extra material. And you can use that material. So a big thing for us is to use all the quirk. Nothing is wasted at Amrum. It's a huge circular economy. We use every part. So you grind up the quirk, and then you can create granules from this. Or if a natural quirk doesn't hit a quality standard that a natural quirk needs to, then we can use that bark. And we can use Supercritol CO2, remove the TCA, and make it into micro granulated quirk. So it's the best of both worlds. We use all of it. Once we create a micro granulated quirk, we have the pieces. And then we can bind them back together with a binder. There's two different types of binders that Amrum specifically has. And one is just a standard FDA approved binder. And another one is a vegetable oil based binder. But it's just-- it's 98% quirk, 2% binder. So there's nothing else. It's just quirk and binder. That's it. So whereas there are other companies that feel the need to add other things. And in micro granulated quarks for compressibility, but we don't believe in that. So we as a company try to keep things as sustainable as possible, use the quirk as the superstar. We love quirk. And it's such a cool material why use anything else. Right. This is another thing Amanda, I think, was surprised by when she came to Portugal as she got to see when the quirk started ground up. We actually have machines that use the quirk dust from the grinding process that help fuel over 65% of our energy needs for Amaram by using that biomass. So we run off quirk dust. So we're just-- it's really cool. It's a really amazing process. We want to use all of it. But yeah, and there are other types of quarks, too. I just-- these are, you know, as we get on the line. We can-- I've just taken as we grab. No, I mean, these are like the three primary tapes, of course. And you have lots of different versions of that within. And what I didn't even realize is that within the natural quirk world, there's different, like, levels of quirk. There's some very expensive quirk. So like, you guys are almost like jewelers in some regard, right? Like you're looking for the diamonds, right? Like, there's different, different grades of quirk. And so what you're looking for, you know, when we went to the very top floor, we saw there was like one person who was like looking for the diamonds in the rough. Like, the cleanest, silkyest, like, the most beautiful pristine quirk you can imagine. And like, those-- so how much approximately? Like, we're talking about-- like, these are crazy expensive quirks that are going into like the most expensive bottles. I mean, they cost range so much. Like, the cost range is so much with a natural quirk, because there's also different types of testing and like curative measures that you can add on as well. So-- but it's-- yeah, it's very much a visual and a lot, a lot of research has shown that the, you know, the outside of the quirk is an indicator of the internal structure for long-term age ability. So a lot of the highest in clients will go for the most beautiful quirks they can. But again, natural quirks are-- there's such a range of looks. And if you pull out a beautiful, beautiful natural quirk, I mean, you realize how rare it is. How many people touch this quirk before it ends up in your wine? Yes. It's pretty incredible that quirks can cost, you know, less than-- less than a dollar a piece. I mean, just in my opinion, just as many people touch it, and that all the different quality control measures a quirk goes through, how inexpensive quirks can go from like, cents to dollars. Yeah, it's pretty incredible. One thing that we have to talk about that you sort of touched on with this idea of TCA, and as we affectionately call it, quirktined. So as assembly, this is like one of those things that-- and as a wine drinker, you know, is one of those annoying things in the wine world that we've had to navigate through and like luckily, the past decade or so, there have been a lot more-- a lot of advances in the quirk world that we'll say that have changed that. But I want to talk a little bit about quirktined and what that means, or TCA. So for those of you who have over opened a bottle of wine that has had a natural quirk in it, and if you've smelled the bottom of that quirk or you've tasted the wine, and it smells a little like grandma's basement or wet cardboard or, you know, newspaper, that is a version of quirktined. And as PJ pointed out, it doesn't only exist with quirk or even in wine, you can exist in lots of different places. Like when I walk around California sometimes, after a rainstorm, I'll walk around and like smell different like vegetation that like has been infected, so to speak, with TCA, baby carrots a lot of times. A carousin general, just like a big place where I see, I don't know why that is, but like if I get like a carrot juice or like a green juice, it has like carrots in it for some reason, like I always smell it. It's just one of those things that like you can be a little bit more sensitive to. And there's, I will say, there's absolutely nothing wrong with drinking a quirked wine. It will not hurt you, it will not affect you. There's nothing viral happening. All it is is basically the wine is just basically taking on these less than delicious characteristics. It can happen in lots of different levels. So like some people are more sensitive to it than others, but what else am I missing on this front? Because you're the expert. We've spent the last two to three decades just studying this and trying to create curative and preventative measures. And as you said, it's naturally occurring in the environment in nature. In nature, yeah. It's just quirk has a capacity, just the spongy nature, to take on more TCA, you could say, but we've done things a lot of curative measures. Just by the way that we harvested all the way through the process of not using wood pallets, I could possibly have it, spread it. But you know, So TCA needs a vector to spread. So I think the baby carrots maybe has a lot to do with, they use chlorinated products to clean it. Perhaps, I mean, I'm not sure about that. I'm not an expert in baby carrots, but the way that you clean things, you want to make sure you don't have something that would create more of that compound, you know. And so removing chlorinated products as cleaning, I don't know if you've ever experienced somebody cleans with bleach on their floor and they have wood floors and it smells like TCA in a room or a house. Yep. That can spread that compound. So you have to think about, you know, changing those kind of things up to maybe peroxide based things or not chlorinated things because it is a two for six trichloroanosol. So it's chlorine kind of helps spread it. It's a vector for it and alcohol will spread. It needs a vector. You actually could have, this is another myth or interesting thing about cork is you can have a cork and I know that a lot of you out there that drink a lot of wine have probably experiences where there's a little bit of TCA in the top part of the cork. And so you take the cork out and you smell TCA and you're like, what the heck? But the wine is perfectly fine because it was in the top part of the cork. Why I never touched that part that was infected and it didn't have a vector to spread. So the cork actually protects, protected. You could store a cork bottle of the cork closure in it and it plays as atmosphere TCA and the wine, it'll protect the wine as long as, you know, it doesn't touch the alcohol. So it needs a vector to spread into the wines. Interesting. So yeah, it's actually, you can actually cork and actually protect your TCA, which is kind of a funny thing. Right. It can occur in a lot of other things too. I mean, it hardly ever happens, but we've heard of situations where a barrel had cork tan it and or I keep calling it cork tan. It should just be TCA positive because it's not a good look for cork. I know TCA. The industry is a whole. I mean, Amherim really being the leaders and setting examples and fighting the problem of TCA. The industry as a whole has really stepped up and cork is definitely made of major comeback in the last decade. And in the last five years, the technology is incredible for me to speak for Amherim because I understand the technology we use really well. We're looking at TCA now down to below 1% like a fraction of a percent of TCA. It still, you know, happens, but it's not a problem like it was before. And as time goes on, people are, you know, two to three years behind the technology that are drinking wines because, you know, people bottle the wines. And then, right, we're drinking at 20, 21 right now. Yeah, exactly. So as the technology gets better in the next five to 10 years, it just will be such a rarity in all different types of corks that when you do get one, it'll be such a big deal because you just won't see it like it once was. And I think like, you know, for cork, it's, there's a lot of conversation around lots of different closures, right? Because cork is not the only thing that's up there. You have screw top, you have glass enclosure, you have plastic, which Miguel Cabral is really, really interesting in pointing out that like basically that was low man on the total bowl in terms of like, you know, what age is the best? So I thought that was very interesting. But, you know, this idea of cork and TCA and like some of the things, some of the arguments against it, you know, I think it's easy for me to sit here as a somebody and say, like, you know, there is, there's always going to be a risk of TCA with any cork, with any natural cork. But the reality is companies like Emmeram have taken such extraordinary steps to erratic the problem down to like, you know, the expert is a great example, right? I've done a video on this. This is a great example of, you know, basically you guys are guaranteeing anyone who uses this cork, which is a microglomerated cork that as you said, they're basically, it's getting put through this CO2, tell me. Super critical CO2 technology. Super critical CO2. So they're basically removing all the TCA, putting it back together. And so you have this product that goes into a cork that does, it goes into a bottle that does all the things that we love about a cork. Interraticates it. It completely erraticates it, right? So if you see expert on your cork, you know that you've got a TCA free bottle. But also within the natural cork world, you guys are doing a ton of testing to make sure that like even natural cork is a lot better. Yeah. I mean, we have an indie technology that tests each natural cork one by one with a gas chromatography machine that we will guarantee. So we have the guarantee on our natural cork segment too. And there are options for people if TCA truly is something that they do not have any type of tolerance for. We have options in every segment of what we sell for no TCA. So I mean, it's pretty incredible that it's got to that point in the wine industry. And we test a 0.5 parts per trillion, which is a drop in 800 ellipic size swimming pools. Wow. And that's an idea of the amount that we test for indie tech works. So I mean, that's crazy. There's really nobody in the industry that's doing the kind of extremes that we are. And you guys are batch testing too, even like not at the indie tech level. Like just to be clear, this is not just like only these guys are getting tested. But they're also like batch testing these other corks as well. So even when you're talking about wineries that maybe can't afford these super expensive corks, you know, there is a ton of there are a ton of measures being taken to ensure that like you're getting the best possible products. Oh, yeah. I mean, our regular natural cork is without the indie tech testing. The indie tech is just an extra step of testing that ensures that extra comfort for people. But the quality control up to that point is incredible. I mean, we have TCA checkpoints at every single part of the court process all the way down to even the bark. When we bring the bark in, you saw the bark getting boiled down. We test the, you know, that's cool. We test them at many parts of the process. So you'll have to come in and see at some point. If anyone ever wants to learn more, you could come in and we can show you around it. And we would love to talk about it. Yeah. No, I know this is like sort of like sounding like a commercial for Emmer. But I think the reality is like these guys are the best at what they do in the cork world. And the cork world is so important to the wine world. And the two can, the one cannot exist really without the other, right? Yeah. And so the fact that Emmer is not just sitting there going like, well, this is just like, what happens when you use cork? Like, no, they're doing a lot to make sure that like we, we know as an industry that cork is the best closure that we have at this moment in time. And it has been used for hundreds of years because of that. So the fact that there are measures being taken to combat, one of the primary issues with cork, the only primary issue with cork is incredible. So I think, you know, for me, this was an episode that it was important to disvolute. I'd have missed around cork. It was important to talk about what it is, but it's also important to show you that like, as much as this has been around for forever, this is also not just something that because it's rooted in history, it's living in history. Like it is a really progressive product as well. And it's like we are in a constant pursuit of excellence and perfection. And we will continue to study. And the next chapter of cork will be really fascinating that I can't exactly talk about yet, but there's a lot of really exciting research that we're doing within the Amherst World that I think will change the way people look at different types of corks and the way that your wine will develop over the life. So I mean, there's constantly research coming out. It's a very special place and there's nothing like a cork material. It's just a cool, cool material. Now, whoever is listening, this will not pull the cork out and throw it out. You said, what are we doing with our corks after we pull them? What's best case scenario? There are a lot of different places, depending on where you are in the US, you can go to recork.org or you can look up cork collective. They're different recycling initiatives around and it will show you areas that accept recycle corks. And when we say recycle corks, we just mean corks that you popped out of your model. And essentially, those people will ship the corks back to collection centers or recycling partners like Amherst and we wait until we have enough to bring a container and we bring them back to Portugal and they get made into yoga mad and different. Just extending the life of the material, it could be sports, inlay, fields, insulation. We just, it's a really great material that you can use longer. It'll never be used for another wine cork. We'll be used for other applications, but it's just great to be able to reuse the material. So that's what happens. We don't reuse the cork for wine, but we reuse it for a lot of different things. It's a fascinating product. One that will, I will continue to ask you about because every now and then I'll talk, like I'll just random one text you somewhere and I'm like, hey, can you remind me? Can you remind me of this? Yeah. You know, it's one of those things that I never knew that I would care so much about, but I'm so glad to have met you and to have been introduced to the M-R-M team and to go to Portugal and see all these things and I truly do have such a passion for this now. If you guys have questions, feel free to shoot them to me in our DMs on Instagram and I would be happy to relay them to PJ. Yeah. All of the links to the recycling places, we will definitely put in the description for you and as always, if you guys want to keep in touch with us, you can do so via Instagram, access and filter the other comments on on YouTube, make sure you're subscribing to this, leaving us reviews. PJ, thank you so much. I love that you took everybody to the church. I love it. I feel really lucky to have been able to come on here and talk about Quark and we love questions. We love questions we don't know as well. It gets our team excited about researching things. So if we don't know something, we'll do our best to get you the right answer. But thank you, Amanda. You're awesome. Really, really appreciate it. How much you love Quark and it's great to have the industry as a whole. We want everybody to use more Quark and get excited about it. I feel like I've done my part now by shouting from the rooftops. And now you guys can do it as well. So thank you so much as a reminder. This is available on YouTube. And if you are not a member of the podcast Wine Club, you can do so by going to the description below. PJ, I wish you all the best. I hope to see you soon. Cheers. [MUSIC PLAYING]