How Nomacorc Synthetic Corks Are Made (Video)

How Are Synthetic Corks Made?

The world drinks about 30 billion bottles of wine a year. The demand for corks has risen because of new wine-drinking countries such as India and China. We visited Nomacorc on the outskirts of Raleigh, NC. Nomacorc synthetic corks are special. They can breath: like natural corks.

Watch a Cork Factory Work

Love Mr. Rogers when he went to the Crayon Factory? In the same spirit of discovery, Wine Folly filmed the process of Nomacorc synthetic corks from start to finish.

View/Hide Video Transcript

Corks.
They’re the final threshold between you and your wine.
About 30 billion bottles of wine are consumed a year.
We went to a synthetic cork factory in North Carolina.
The company makes up to 7 million corks a day.
What’s the story with how these corks are made?
A synthetic cork starts out with millions of plastic pellets.
These Pellets get blended together.
The pellets are melted and puffed into a tube.
The tube of cork is cooled in a water bath.
Then it is measured and cut to size.
Bad corks are recycled.
This guy operated the cork label printer for us.
Ever try Rex Goliath?
This machine prints on the ends of the corks, it’s new.
Once the printing is done, the corks are collected into a bagging machine.
The conveyor belt delivers perfectly weighed corks to be bagged.
Then they shipped out all over the world.
Corks are neat.

Brands that use Nomacorc Synthetic Corks

Perhaps you’ve seen these in your wine bottle

Sources
Music by Zdenek Gromnica, an original solo piano piece called “Echo”
31.3 billion bottles of wine consumed a year from wineinstitute.org
7 million corks a day Nomacorc Statistics

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By Madeline Puckette
I'm a certified wine geek with a passion for meeting people, travel, and delicious food. You often find me crawling around dank cellars or frolicking through vineyards.