WINE CORK INFORMATION

Cork comes from the thick outer bark of the cork oak tree (Quercus suber). Harvesting the cork is a delicate operation of removing the bark from the tree by hand. It is labor intensive, been going on for years, all efforts at mechanical harvesting has proved fruitless.

CORK GROWTH - The cork sapling, one planted, needs to grow unaltered for 25 years, prior to its’ first harvesting. At this time the virgin cork is removed, and used in specialized processing applications (unsuitable for use in wine due to its highly irregular structure and variegated density). The second harvesting is done nine years after the virgin cork is removed, and the removal of this cork layer is called its “reproduction cork”. This material is more regular than the virgin cork, but still not suitable for use as a wine cork, and can typically be found further downstream in a granulated form, used in applications such as in conglomerate cork flooring. The third harvesting provides the highest quality cork material, called “amadia”. Amadia cork is the cork used in wine stoppers. After this third harvesting, harvesting continues on this 9 year cycle for hundreds of years, always producing the high quality raw and regular material.

CORK FORESTS - Cork trees are truly a way of life in the Mediterranean region, as for many centuries the economy has relied on it in one way or another. Rigid and strict forest protection guidelines date back to the 13th century when the value of the cork became apparent. Now, most of the main countries producing cork (Portugal, Spain, Algeria, Morocco, France, Tunisia, and Italy) have legal guidelines for the cultivation and protection of their cork oaks. In Portugal, the largest cork producer, cultivation is banned for forest groves on hillsides, uphill from watercourses or where tilling may loosen the soil excessively. It is illegal to harvest the bark on young trees or cut down a cork oak other than for essential forest thinning or if the tree has outlived its usefulness. With the help of EU (European Union) and Portuguese government reforestation programs, the area of cork forest under cultivation in Portugal is growing by about four per cent a year. Today, new trees are being planted at twice the rate at which old trees are dying, putting aside the myth that the cork forests are in peril.

WINE CORK PRODUCTION - There are between 13-15 billion cork stoppers produced every year and sold worldwide to the wine industry. The use of cork for bottle stoppers comprises almost 70% of the total value of the cork market, despite wine corks being only about 15%, by weight, of all the products produced by cork. Domestically in the US, there is continual and steady growth (approx. 7% annually) with the use of natural corks, now exceeding 900 million a year.

CARBON SEQUESTERING PROPERTIES OF CORK - According to the World Wildlife Federation, the harvesting of cork not only benefits industry by introducing useful products into the economy, but from a carbon sequestering standpoint, a cork tree which has its bark removed every 9 years, will absorb 3-5 times as much CO2 than a similar tree that is left idle. The tree needs to store the CO2 so it can regenerate. According to Amorim, Portugal’s largest supplier of cork for the wine industry, CO2-retention capabilities of Portugal’s cork forests are estimated to be as high as five per cent of the country’s annual emissions, or 4.8 million tons per year.

WINE CORK QUALITY - Wine cork quality varies based on its age (the age of the tree from inception, and the age since the last harvesting), and ultimately the geographic area from which it is harvested. Though there are a large number of places in the world where the cork oak grows, there is only a small swath of land, mainly in the Mediterranean, where cork of suitable quality, can be produced in suitable quantity for commercial use.