It's not just the lovely red wine that you swill in your glass that took a long way to get there. That small stopper that came with your favorite bottle did too...
It all begins with a tree, and not just any other tree. It has to come from a mature cork oak that is at least 50 years old. And why a cork oak especially? Because the tree produces Suberin, a waxy substance which adds to the versatility and functionality of the cork. These are qualities which allow cork to resist rotting caused by moisture, mildew, mold, and insect infestation.
Cork oak can live for several hundreds of years, and can be commercially harvested for about 200 years. They can grow to an impressive size such as these oaks which we chanced upon on a hiking trip in the plains of Alentejo, in the south of Portugal (the country produces more than half of the world's cork.) The cork as we know it comes from the bark of the tree when it has reached a certain thickness after which it is stripped every 10 years or so. The trunks are marked with the year it was stripped.
Cork oak can live for several hundreds of years, and can be commercially harvested for about 200 years. They can grow to an impressive size such as these oaks which we chanced upon on a hiking trip in the plains of Alentejo, in the south of Portugal (the country produces more than half of the world's cork.) The cork as we know it comes from the bark of the tree when it has reached a certain thickness after which it is stripped every 10 years or so. The trunks are marked with the year it was stripped.
How I happened to learn more about the process of transforming these barks into wine stoppers is a small story by itself. While I was walking along the quiet streets of the picturesque village of Viana do Alentejo and stopping a moment to admire an abandoned mill, an elderly lady beckoned. She began to tell me the story of the mill, and said she owned the property across the street. Pointing to the looming structure, she said it was the family-owned old olive press facility and behind it, the cork processing factory, and would I like to see them? She bet that I did.
On one side stood a pile of thick planks which were neatly stacked. They were left there to cure from a few weeks up to 6 months.
The big hunks of bark are stacked to fit into a cage which would then be dipped in boiling water to soften them, and afterwards in a chemically-treated bath.
Here is the mechanism to heat the chemical bath, fired from below. The chemically-treated planks are then stored to dry and cure for several weeks.
The machine through which the cork is punched.
The strips of cork from which the corkstops are punched out. These leftovers are then made into other cork products like flooring and boards.
The little rolls of cork are afterwards washed, dried, and treated once more. Here they are ready to be shipped off to wineries near and far where they will be branded with logos.
The entire process, which includes several drying and curing stages, easily takes up a year. Add to that the decades it took for the oak tree to grow and renew its bark. (And we're not counting the time and the distance it took from the winery to your glass.) That little corkstop came a long way indeed.
It's nice to know that a good wine is kept good in the bottle by something that, like it, has been treated and aged well.
