HOW HE SEES IT What's in a cork? Not much, really

By TRUMAN TAYLOR
PROVIDENCE JOURNAL
We've all heard the doomsday predictions about how we're running out of essential natural resources. We're told we don't have enough drinking water. Oil has been on the "we don't have enough" list for decades. We're warned that clean, breathable air is getting hard to find, and if we all don't get out of our cars and take a bus, we soon won't have any clean air to breathe.
Now we can add one more item to that long list of things we're running out of. It's cork.
Natural cork
Many wine makers, faced with the diminishing supply of natural cork, have begun using fake cork and plastic stoppers. Some, sad to say, have even resorted to screw-on metal caps on bottles of fine wine.
Out at Oregon State University, where they take this cork shortage seriously, they've been conducting studies. And they've concluded that the bottle stopper -- whether of natural cork or synthetic, metal cap or plastic plug -- makes no difference in the taste of the wine.
Soon at some fancy restaurant, a sommelier will open an expensive bottle of wine and place its screw-on cap on the table, for you to pick up and smell. This will make you feel you're in some way helping to save the planet. But it's doubtful you'll feel that way at all.
X Truman Taylor is a television public-affairs-show host. Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.