There’s an ongoing discussion about wine closures, mostly between cork and screwcaps. Being from Portugal I get easy access to the relevance of cork in world of wine through daily news. Cork has been since 1600’s and is the most used wine stopper. It has its problems (potential relation to TCA) but also its virtues (sustainable resource). But this post in not about that debate, but about an interesting new way to use cork: stamps.

This stamp is a limited edition (230k) created by the national postal service of Portugal (CTT). It was designed by Portuguese designer João Machado and has sold out in Portugal.

From what I could read in a Portuguese newspaper there’s high technology involved in producing the stamp. Getting cork that thin is very hard.

Now that there’s cork this thin I can’t stop thinking of all the interesting things that can be done with that. I would imagine that wine labels made of cork could be an interesting marketing experience.

There’s one thing I can guarantee. TCA won’t ruin your letters!

We love to see new startups in the wine business, specially the ones doing something really world-changing. Richard Shaffer is doing just that by launching Israeli Wine Direct.

IWD is an online wine shop that is sourcing it’s wines from garagiste and boutique wine producers in Israel and selling them in America.

Using the Web as a marketing and sales tool, Richard is able to close the (normally big) gap between wine producers and their customers. The interesting fact is that he is doing that between Israeli wineries and American customers.

Richard has been telling all about his venture in his blog where he also writes about Israeli wineries and wine marketing.

I came across Richard Shaffer’s blog exactly while researching information on Israeli wines. I subscribed to his RSS feed and have been a reader since then.

This is the way slowly the world of wine is changing. We search for information online, we buy wine online and with initiatives like this we can more easily try wines from a different country.