Is Drinking Wine Good for Your Sole?

Andrea Guzman, Promotions and Partnership Manager Who knew that drinking wine could lead to a new pair of shoes! You're enjoying a sunny afternoon on the Wine Train and sharing a bottle of Chardonnay with an old friend. An hour or so later, a server walks by and whisks away your cork and empty bottle. After that, you don't think again about the fate of your Chardonnay bottle or of that of the old cork. Luckily, we do. After your cork leaves the table, your server places it into a special bin. Once the bin fills up, a Wine Train employee drives the bin of corks to a plant in South Napa. There, the corks are ground to a millimeter thick material. This new cork material is then sent to "Sole Shoes" in Canada where they make it into flip flops. These new flip flops should be out on the market and covering feet sometime this year. Recork Amorium is a pilot cork recycling program sponsored by Amorium in Portugal, a company that manufactures the cork enclosures. Upcycling these corks to Canada to be redesigned into shoes is the responsible thing to do and we are delighted to be in a partnership with a company doing the right thing. Check out their website at http://recork.org/ When drinking wine, please recycle your enclosure.