There was a natural history type documentary last week about the Portugese Cork Oak and the Lynx. It was very good.
I don't expect to see a sudden demise of cork closures as there's too much tradition involved, and we all know about tradition eh? New Zealand is embracing screwcaps and good luck to them since most NZ Wines are for early drinking as mentioned above. I don't seem to come across many synthetic corks, but don't much like them. Let's face it you can't tell from the outside anyway. The 'experts' seem to think that real cork is best for wines with cellaring potential. We've been very lucky in that I've only ever had about half a dozen corked wines over many years - of which only one has been white.
