October 8, 2025 • 48 mins
Cork is a component of tree bark that insulates the tree from the outside world – and those same properties make cork a near-perfect closure for containers holding liquids like wine. Anney and Lauren pop open the science and history behind corks.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hello, and welcome to Savor production of iHeartRadio. I'm Annie
Reach and.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
I'm Lauren Bogelbaum, and today we have an episode for
you about cork closures, cork stoppers, like for wine bottles
and stuff.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And it turns out what a whopper
of an episode.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Who Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
This was one that I suggested knowing it was going
to be kind of huge, but I really underestimated how
huge it was going to be. Also, I didn't mention
to you that I knew that it was going to
be huge, So that's my bad.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Well, I should have looked into it more before I
agreed readily, so that's on me. But wow, we were
discussing right before we started recording all of the other
offshoot episodes. We could get out of this because people
have people have thoughts, and they've written about the thought.
There's science, there's so much oh.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Yeah, and there's oh man, if we were several different
podcasts all at the same time. I have a whole
paper open over here from the CIA entitled Cork Production
and Trade, with particular emphasis on the Soviet block that
I have not read because that's about military uses of cork,
which are mostly not food related.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Yes, yes, and to be honest that there are a
lot of things that we could get into more, and
we probably will in the future in this episode. But
one of the things, one of the problems I ran into,
is that you can't talk about the cork stopper without
(01:49):
talking about the screw cap because it's such a there's
just so related. Yeah, they're just so related.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
The industry is the same industry, and so it's yep,
here we are.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Well, well, was there any particular reason this was on
your mind? Lauren?
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Oh heck, what did we talk about recently? Aham on
a barrico, Yeah, where we had mentioned cork oaks, and
I was like, oh, yeah, cork. Why haven't we ever
done an episode about quarks? And then I was like, oh,
that's why, because it's gonna take me two extra days
to read.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
About yep, as happens often.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Yeah, but uh, but right, like it had been on
my radar for a long time. Perhaps obviously our first
episode was about sparkling wine. Also, we relatively recently did
that episode on the crown cap on bottle caps, yeah,
which originally came with a little bit of cork in
(02:57):
them as an insulator and and also relatively recently, we
did that Ramine episode and talked about the cod neck bottle.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
So yeah, bottle closures are cool. They are cul cool.
Oh no, I'm going back to the two thousands.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Oh dear, this is why we're so fun at parties.
We are the most fun at parties. No.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Well, I mean perhaps saying bottle closures are cool is
enough to make that point. But they are. There's a
lot of interesting stuff going on, yes, absolutely, Oh man,
oh man, there is there is, so let's get to it.
I guess this brings us to our question cork. What
(03:49):
is it?
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Well, cork is a type of material that's harvested from
tree bark and then processed to make all kinds of things,
but most relevant to us here today stoppers for glass bottles,
especially for wine and other perishable liquids. Natural cork is
(04:11):
this material that's lightweight, elastic, It resists decay, it lasts
a long time, it insulates warmth, it's very nearly watertight
and airtight, and it literally grows on trees. It is
just excellent as a bottle stopper because it's compressible but
(04:34):
not easily broken, like if you take a piece of
cork that's just a little bit bigger around than the
neck of a bottle. You can smush it in there
and it will expand back out as much as possible,
forming a tight seal with the interior surface. It is
a sustainable natural material and its structure is just really
cool or cool?
Speaker 3 (04:54):
Quick?
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Wow? Cool? How did you say it? Fuel?
Speaker 2 (04:59):
There you go one. It makes it incredibly useful across
a number of applications. It's like a tree decided that
we should have wine corks.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
That's that's what it's like. Thank you tree, Yes, thank you.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
So the type of oak typically used for cork is
a species called Quircus super suber i. Didn't look it
up here, we are. It's an evergreen. It can grow
to be some sixty five feet that's twenty meters tall.
They like it sunny but not very rainy. It has
a sort of short trunk in these thick branches that
will support a canopy of about the same diameter as
(05:40):
its height. The cork oak has leathery green leaves and
will grow small clusters of flowers, which, if pollinated, develop
into acorns that can be used to make seed flour
or roasted as a coffee substitute or used to feed
livestock like pigs, for example. But the part of the
tree that we are mostly interested in is the bark.
(06:03):
Cork oaks grow this rough, deeply furrowed bark that's grayish
on the outside and reddish brown deeper down, and it
can grow to be like a foot thick that's like
thirty centimeters And that species name super comes from a
Greek term for wrinkled skin. The bark is good for
(06:25):
the tree because it's fire resistant, and these trees grow
in arid areas where brush fires often break out every year. Now,
lots of trees grow a certain amount of cork. It's
like a specialized layer in their bark to help insulate
the living inner part of the tree. But yeah, cork
(06:45):
oaks just go for it. They're also really the only
known trees that can have their bark harvested once every
so often and be okay. It takes a newly planted
cork oak over thirty years to produce good bark for harvest,
and they can only be harvested from once every decade
(07:06):
or so, but they can live for like over two
hundred years.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Super cool.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Speaking of let's talk about the cellular structure of cork
that makes it so useful. Okay, So cork is made
up of closed cells that are hollow, you know, filled
with air, and they're arranged tightly in this hexagonal like
honeycomb structure. So cork is a foam. It's about eighty
(07:33):
five to ninety percent air, and the cell walls are
made of this tough lignin that's coated real thinly with
layers of waxes and fats which which insulate the cells
from air and water and other stuff too pretty well
like acids. Electron micrographs have shown that the cell walls
(07:53):
are actually a little wavy, not totally straight, which helps
form tiny crumple zone that like help preserve the overall
integrity of the material when it's crushed, and can also
be pulled on and straightened out without stretching or thinning
the material.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
So cool. These trees are really cool. Again, if we
were a different podcast, I love them.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Oh man, I got I got really into cork this week,
you guys. Okay, Anyway, cork harvesting is done by hand,
as far as I'm aware, entirely by hand everywhere, and
this is a specialized skill set you you have to
know you know how to not murder the tree while
you're removing its bark. So first you have to know
(08:42):
when it's ready, because you want to harvest when the
cork layer is in its rapid growth stage in the
spring to summer. Like, if you get in there and
realize it's not rapid growth stage enough, you have to stop,
put down what you're doing, and pick it up again
a year later when it is ready. You start with
a horizontal cut around the circumference of the trunk and
(09:04):
then make vertical cuts off of that to create sheets.
They're called planks, and you do this by feel. You
use this specialized axe to just gently thud into the
bark and then feel down for how deep you can go,
and then carefully start peeling a safe amount of bark away.
(09:26):
And yeah, the harvesters will strip the trunk and then
some of the thick lower bits of the branches. It
winds up looking like a really weird like high top fade.
And apparently these harvesters are the highest paid agricultural workers
in Europe. Wow, according to ap News. So yeah, which
(09:52):
seems like a decent link, good source for information. Uh yeah,
cork is then processed in factories to take it from
the kind of curly whirly planks that you've pulled off
of the tree to even strips that are easy to
do stuff with. So first you dry the planks, then
boil them to expand the cell structure and like flatten
(10:13):
the planks out, you know. The planks are then cut
into more manageable strips and shapes of whatever kind can
then be cut off or stamped out corks of various sizes,
maybe whole cork boards or sheets for other uses. Yeah,
and this is called natural cork, and it's going to
go through a whole cleaning process before it's sent off
(10:34):
for making cork stoppers or whatever other use, washing, disinfection,
maybe lubrication with something like paraffin or silicone. There are
grades of cork. The good stuff should be dense and
show low permeability, like via coloration from wine seeping in
on the interior end, stuff like that to make things fun.
(10:56):
Though there is no industry wide grading system, basically every
producer has their own classification. Also, low grade cork can
be filled in with cork dustin binder to make a
higher grade, but different from natural cork.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Cork.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
These are called coalmated corks. Yeah, and further, you can
use especially low grade cork and like scraps to make
what's called technical cork. Basically, you grind down the by
product from natural cork products into even granules that you
can then gently smush together using some kind of binder
(11:34):
glue basically, and then mold into whatever shape you want.
You can also make corks with a combination of both
of these techniques, like disks of natural cork attached to
technical cork. I understand that that's how sparkling wine corks
are pretty much always made, but yeah, there are all
kinds of specifications for different applications, depending on the liquid
(11:57):
to be bottled and its shelf life. Speaking of food
and drink items, cork has remained so popular a closure
for things like wine because it stops almost all airflow
into and out of the bottle. Almost A tiny bit
(12:18):
of oxygen is important to the maturation process of wines
which are supposed to mature, and a lot of research
has been done surrounding this, but essentially, both flavor and
color are affected by oxygenation, and you want a little
bit to be able to happen. The typical natural wine
cork will let in about a milligram of oxygen per year.
(12:41):
But that is not all that's going on amongst a
cork stopper and a bottle of wine, because natural cork
that's allowed to remain in contact with wine, as happens
when a wine bottle is stored on its side, will
indeed change the flavor of the wine over time, possibly
adding biteness and other kind of flavors that are not
(13:03):
necessarily considered good but are sometimes part of the flavor
profile of a wine. And believe me when I say
that research is ongoing. It's very it is very on
and very going both Indeed, of course, wine bottles are
(13:23):
not the only application for cork. You know, there's other
alcohols too, and other liquids you know, oils, vinegars, honey,
stuff like that. Many such products are assumed to be
multi use, not like more or less single use as
with a bottle of wine. I mean, of course, you
can squeeze a cork back into a wine bottle or
use a different stopper to keep it fresh for a
(13:45):
couple of days, But yeah, it doesn't really stand up
to like multiple use, which is why quarks on things
like liquor or olive oil, are made with a grippable
cap attached to the quark so that it can be
removed and replaced by hand any number of times. And
cork is used for lots of other stuff, cork boards,
perhaps obviously, It's used for cork leather, for gaskets in
(14:08):
woodwind instruments, as an insulator in flooring and footwear, and
all kinds of industrial applications. Cork is used in the
heat shields of some spacecraft.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
It's really amazing how much the application of cork is
all the things that it's been used for. On a
much less serious note, my friend who helped me get
into wine, she gave me all these like cork magnets.
(14:41):
Oh so after the wine is done, make a magnet
out of the cork. I love it. It's great, all right,
Well what about the nutrition?
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Do not eat cork?
Speaker 1 (15:00):
I'll also also drink responsibly. Sure, well, yeah, we do
have some numbers for you.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Oh we do, okay, So the harvest of natural cork
is estimated to be around two hundred tons a year,
about half of which is in Portugal, nearly a third
of which is in Spain. So there's like a smattering
around basically the rest of north and south of the Mediterranean. Yeah,
(15:30):
in Portugal, it's nearly a billion euro a year industry,
with seventy two percent of that value coming from making
wine stoppers. Note that only about fifteen percent of harvested
cork goes to the wine industry. It's just really valuable there.
(15:51):
Portugal sells the most cork to France than the US.
It is the national tree of Portugal. Worldwide, we produced
nearly thirteen billion cork wine stoppers every year, and I
think that that's a little less than half of all
wine closures, and I believe that that includes both technical
(16:15):
and natural quarks. I read that screwcap wine is now
the industry leader, with some thirty seven percent of the
market share, which if accurate, indicates just a drastic shift,
not only in the past thirty years before which it
(16:35):
was essentially unheard of, but just in the past five
to ten years. We're gonna have to do a separate episode.
We'll talk a little bit more about it in the
history anyway, world records. The tallest cork oak on record
is in France. It is twenty one meters tall. That's
a little over sixty eight feet, which is around the
(16:57):
height of like a seven story building. It's I know right.
It's been around since at least the eighteen nineties when
it was remarked upon in a travel diary. I think
that it took the record in twenty twenty four from
the previously labeled largest cork coke, which is different from tallest,
(17:19):
but anyway, the corkok in question is this Portuguese tree,
believed to have been planted in seventeen eighty three. It's
nicknamed the Whistler's tree for the songbirds that inhabit it.
It's been harvested from over twenty times. The last few
times that it's been harvested, it yielded enough for some
(17:41):
one hundred thousand wine stoppers, like something near a thousand
kilos or like two thousand pounds of raw cork.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
I'm telling you, these trees are cool. They're so cool
them up. Oh they're really pretty. You've been written about
the environmentalism of them. Oh yeah, you can do this, yeah,
live yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Speaking of quarkk forests are some of the most biodiverse
forests in the world, with a plant diversity of up
to one hundred and thirty five species per square meter.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
So cool, so cool.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Also, there is an International Conference on Quark Science and Applications.
Its fifth iteration is happening this year twenty twenty five,
on the thirteenth and fourteenth of October in Lisbon, Portugal.
So we are weirdly timely for once. Yeah I didn't
even I didn't plan that one, but but yeah, if
(18:48):
you're going, oh, if you've been oh my goodness.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Please please listeners cool. No, yes, yes, oh my, but okay,
we do have quite a history for you.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Uh huh, yep, yep, we do.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Uh and we are going to get into that as
soon as we get back from a quick break for
a word from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
And we're back. Thank you, sponsors, Yes, thank you. Okay. So,
the cork oak is indigenous to southern Europe and Africa. Again,
we're a food show, so the tree itself is a
whole separate thing. But yes, people have been using cork
for all kinds of things for over four thousand years,
(19:47):
for sandal souls, for floatation vnitili, and yes, as a
way to plug containers like barrels or jars. Archaeologist working
in Pompeii or on Anci Greek shipwrecks have uncovered amphori,
which were a popular type of jar or container, frequently
(20:07):
stopped up with a QRK. Some of these amphor i
date back to ten to one BCE and they were
pretty widespread in ancient room. They've even been discovered as
far as India and England.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Yeah, and m foi are that bottle type that has
a sort of like teardrop shape with the pointed end
being the bottom and then atop the wide end of
the tear drop you've got a thinner neck and like
double handles.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
These were wax lined ceramics that were invented in Egypt,
and different materials were used as stoppers over history, often
some combination of like reeds, leaves and or rags and
then a sealant like a softer clay than the jar,
or a wax maybe. But the Romans hit on cork
and they loved it. Plenty wrote about the cork oak
(20:59):
early in the an era as a tree with bad acorns,
but useful bark.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Bad acorns.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
It was like they are insufficient in number and not
good for eating. Or that's not a direct quote, but
that was the gist.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
That sounds like a movie company, like a production company.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
Bad acorn, bad acorns.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Oh no, yeah, Well, in any case, after the Roman
Empire fell in four hundred and seventy six CE, cork
seemed to fall out of common use, at least given
the written record. That didn't change until glass bottles became
more ubiquitous in the seventeenth century. Previously, people had been
(21:41):
using cloth covered wood instead. According to researchers, the French
were the ones who brought back cork as the preferred
wine stopper, since it held up better to liquid. In
Gervais Markham's sixteen to fifteen work The English Housewife, he
described the process using cork to bottle beer. The cork
(22:03):
was further secured with strong thread to keep it in
place in the face of increasing carbonation, a problem that
also plagued sparkling wines, and as discussed in our Sparkling
Wine episode, this led to a lot of consternation and
superstitions for sparkling wine producers until the invention of the
wired cage to hold the cork in place, called a
(22:24):
museulee in the nineteenth century. It's kind of interesting to
me how many of these things were still using.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Oh yeah, they were just like, well, that works, just fine,
Let's keep going.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
That works, let's keep doing it. Oh okay. Speaking of
the seventeenth century is also probably when the corkscrew was invented,
specifically for wine. Before that, quirks had these small nubs
on the edge so that consumers could remove them with
their hands. But with improved glass bottles growing demand, and
(22:55):
specifically in the UK, from what I read, a desire
to store bottles sideways, people were looking for another method,
Thus the corkscrew. A sixteen eighty one museum catalog described
a corkscrew as a steel worm used for the drawing
of quarks out of bottles, which is a separate episode.
(23:15):
Oh yes, oh yes, but I desperately want to return
to it because I'm curious about When we did our
can opener episode, we talked about how a lot of
people don't know how to use can openers anymore. I'm
wondering if corkscrews are falling into that category. But you
also were discussing they're very fancy.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Corkscrew Oh yeah, yeah, cork removers right right right right,
All of these like sixty to one hundred dollars devices
that you get it. You know, like whatever the equivalent
these days is of Sharper image. I don't know if
Sharper image still exists, but right, and it's like some
kind of device that just magically removes the quark from
your wine with absolutely no effort on your part. And
(23:59):
I feel like these are cheating. And also I do
not need sixty dollars on a device when the three
dollar one that you can get from any reputable liquor
store will work absolutely better, or maybe not better, but
just you know, it will do just as well. Yeah,
you just have to look for the one that has
the little hinge in one side of it so that
(24:20):
you can.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Notch it in.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Yeah, boop up as you move the anyway, strong opinions
at any rate. Around the same time, the middle of
the sixteen hundreds, scientists were figuring out more about microscopy
and biology. One of the first samples of a plant
(24:45):
that Robert Hook examined under his microscope in the early
sixteen sixties was quark like this is the material where
he noticed the structure of the microscopic pores in the
sample and called them cells, meaning a small chamber named
for monks quarters. That's why we still call the things
(25:09):
that make up plant and animal bodies and funguses as
well cells because of cork. He also further surmised that
the shape and arrangement of those cells are responsible for
the physical properties of cork, which is of course correct
more or less not super relevant to like wine stoppers,
(25:30):
but just really cool niche in history there absolutely oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Meanwhile, cork remained the favorite stopper for non sparkling wines.
Commercial cork production got underway in the eighteenth century in
areas where the cork oak crew. The process of cork
harvesting has remained largely unchanged since then.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Yeah, yep, speaking of commercial cork productions. So colonists did
bring cork oaks to what would become the United States
back in the sixteen hundreds, and the trees can be
found in spots around the country today, but they're one
Mediterranean crop that just never took off in California, however,
(26:17):
there was some kerfuffle about cork shortages during World War Two,
because so by nineteen forty, the US was importing about
half the world's cork for use in manufacturing all kinds
of things, consumer products like bottle caps, which right had
the cork linings before plastic hit the scene, cork flooring,
(26:39):
car insulation, but also other forms of insulation up to
and including in bomber planes. So Germany blockaded US. It
became a whole thing. There was suspected sabotage from a
cork factory fire in Baltimore, there was corporate espionage over imports,
(27:00):
and so although it did not actually help the war
effort because the trees again take decades to mature, people
from youth clubs to state governors were like actively and
patriotically planting cork trees around the US. You see, Davis
for example, has like five hundred or so. And also
(27:21):
they have a campus tree map if you're ever over
that way and you want to like look at some
specific trees.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
Yes, right, listeners, let us know.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Apparently they did a harvest of one of the corks
on a cork oaks on campus relatively recently, and like
they had like a whole like they've got signage up
to like explain why it looks the way that it does.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
I love it. I love it. That's fantastic. All right.
Here we get into a lot of the twist and
turns of recent decades when it comes to cork.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
That is kind of a screw cap pun. But here
we go.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Yeah, thank you, Laurreen. Yes, you see what I'm doing.
All right. So, beginning in the nineteen nineties, there was
a decline of cork production and a decrease in cork value.
This was largely blamed on plastic stoppers and screw tops
when it came to wine. In two thousand and two,
(28:25):
founder of California's Bonnie Dune Winery, Randall Graham, orchestrated a
funeral for the corkscrew in New York's Grand Central Station. Okay,
okay oh. I had to look into this to make
sure I was not being pranked by the onion or something,
but it did happen. Trumpets announced the arrival of a
(28:48):
hearse transporting the casket of a cork dummy named Tiri Bouchan,
which is French for corkscrew. The eulogy was delivered by
famous wine writer Chansis Robinson with the opening line, Oh cork,
Oh cork, Oh, corky cork, how we shall miss thy
(29:09):
cylindrical barkie majesty. This was in part to advertise the
largest US bottling of fine wine with screw caps eighty
thousand bottles of one of Graham's own wines. Before that,
screw caps were largely associated with cheap wines, and so
he was trying to turn that image around. Obviously, the
(29:33):
cork industry was not happy about this, and it caused
a huge ordeal. Graham himself later went on to explain
he had no idea that the stunt would cause such
a stir, and that he'd started experimenting with synthetic stoppers
in nineteen ninety six to combat cork taint, eventually settling
(29:56):
on screw caps. So, cork taint is when, yes, the
cork gets contaminated with two four six trichlorinisol, which gives
the wine that unpleasant smell and it spoils the wine.
It's yeah, it's the reason why you might sometimes be
asked to smell the cork. And this whole thing TCA
(30:16):
was first discovered in nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
Yeah, yeah, TCA right, And so if a restaurant hands
you a cork and like a mini pore of wine
from a bottle that you ordered, you are meant to
appraise them for whether they're tainted by TCA or some
other obvious issue. There the restaurant is not asking you
for your emotions about the wine. They're showing you that
A you're getting the bottle that you ordered, and B
(30:43):
it's drinkable wine and does not seem to have gone
to vinegar or like taste like wet cardboard.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
I will reiterate it is really bad.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
I've never had this happen to me, but it is.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
You know, I don't like to things away. I have
poured out a bottle of them. Oh wow, bad.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Okay, Yeah, Apparently TCA is particularly we are humans are
particularly sensitive to it.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
So yeah, well, and it was a big problem, and
it led to the invention of the screw cap for
wine in the first place. So again, separate episode, but
it's so closely related. Yeah, Like I got a touch
like that, like very briefly.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Yeah. So the screw cap for wine was developed in
nineteen fifty nine by French bottle manufacturer Le Bouchon Mechanique,
and in nineteen sixty four it was requested by an
Australian winery that was fed up with cork taint. And
this was partly because exporting wine from Australia was a
lengthy process. It's so far away from everything that there
(31:53):
was more time and opportunity for their wines to get
cork taint. While screwtops weren't new, they were pretty new
when it came to wine, and at first they encountered
a lot of resistance from cork producers, wine producers and consumers.
It took decades for them to become a more commonplace
(32:15):
in the nineties and two thousands, in part due to
a concerted effort by Australian winemakers to bottle their best
wines and screwtops. Over time, the screwtops were further improved
to allow in some air for the aging process, as
discussed if you look it up, like New Zealand and
Australia they have the most screwtop wines and there's also
(32:41):
a reason they were pretty They led the way when
it came to box wine as well, so see our
boxed wine episode for more on that. Yes, absolutely, plastic
win stoppers came onto the scene in the nineteen eighties
and this whole thing, the rise of groog caps for
wine because of the frustration with TCA, prompted the cork
(33:04):
industry to try to get rid of TCA in their
quarks and they use some really expensive technology and labs
to do it. Recently they have about a ninety nine
percent success rate.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
And that is why restaurants well a reason why a
restaurants still do like the cork and sample presentation thing
because one percent is very low, but it is not zero,
and if you're going through one at a volume, you
will eventually find it. Also, there are other strains of
molds that can get in there. Believe me, the industry
(33:39):
is working on it. There was a shift towards alternative
bottle stoppers for both inexpensive and premium wines for a
couple decades there. As a result of all of this,
the premium category is slowly switching back to cork. In
some cases. Some producers really like those modern airflow screw
(34:00):
caps that the airflow screw caps provide oxygen flow the
most similar to natural cork. Synthetic quarks give you too
much oxygen flow like they provide the most oxygen flow
in and out, and traditional screw caps provide the least,
so too little. Anyway, I read a lot about oxygen
(34:22):
flow into bottles of wine.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
I hear you, Lauren, I did too, And speaking of
there are other pieces of this arguments the loss of
the ritual of opening a corked bottle of wine versus
also the convenience of not needing a corkscrew to that end.
The zork closure. I learned that this is a whole
(34:46):
game that I want to research from the eighties from MIT,
I think, but if we're not talking about that. The
zork closure was invented in two thousand and three. This
is a combination of the screw cap and the quark
seals like a screwcap bottle and pops like the cork one,
so you still kind of get that ritual. The metacork
(35:06):
is another one which keeps the cork but eliminates the
need for a quirkscrew, which was invented around the same time.
I think I've actually experienced both of these. I've seen
them in the wild. There are a lot of other
examples too. I have to say these are just a
mirror smattering.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
Oh yeah, oh yeah. I did not even go into
all of that. I was like, different episodes because right, like,
we're doing cork right now because we kind of need
it first before we can tackle screw caps or synthetic qrks. Like,
probably we should have done it before bottle caps for
(35:46):
a proper liquid bottle closure timeline. But here we are, here,
we are. Yeah, at any rate, it is truly wild
how intensely the market has diversified over the past thirty years.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
Meanwhile, the aforementioned Whistler tree was designated a tree of
Public Interest in nineteen eighty eight, and it won European
Tree of the Year in twenty eighteen. A contest that
I need to learn more about.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
A tree a public interest.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
Oh yeah, that too.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
Yeah, that sounds like the tree has done something. It's
got like it's poster up.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
I assume it's it's it's like a like a like
a historical landmark kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
But I like where your brain is going.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
Oh no, I've seen this tree's picture in trees up
to stuff. Yeah, I love that. I love that, Okay.
In recent years. In recent years, cork trees have been
producing thinner strips of bark, which is a problem for
making quarks. Researchers suspect climate change that that is to blame.
(37:06):
There's also been conversations around the ego friendliness or not
of screw gaps and cork so as mentioned, cork oaks
just have this biome that's really really amazing. So there's
been a lot of discussion about that.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, as always. I mean there's you know,
like the care and stewardship of natural resources like trees
and the resources that it takes to create petroleum products
like plastic. But we'll have to go into it another
time at any rate. Yes, one last historical note here.
(37:47):
Just this year, there was some worry about Cork economically
amid the Trump Administration's tariffs, which, to review very briefly,
tariffs are taxes that a government charges its own citizens
in order to import products made outside of their country.
(38:07):
So the Trump administrations tariffs are taxes that we Americans
pay to import anything we want from not here. I'm
sure a lot of y'all know that. It seems like
there's been some confusion about it lately, possibly from the
administration itself. So I just thought I just thought I
might mention that that's what that means anyway, Cork. Yeah, both
(38:31):
Portuguese diplomats and California wine and industry folks really campaigned
for an exemption from the tariff on EU products, which
as of recently was set at fifteen percent, and the
exemption happened. Good for them as of September first, it
(38:52):
happened anyway, These things are moving fast.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
Yeah, thing is moving so fast.
Speaker 3 (39:03):
Yep, yep, yep.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
And as as mentioned repeatedly throughout this episode, people are
doing the research. Things are changing fast. Like even the
numbers we said.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Yeah, yeah, I like right, like there were a few
places in here where I was reporting on numbers that
were from good sources. But I was like, oh, I'm
not that was three years ago. That was yeah, not
totally sure.
Speaker 1 (39:32):
Yeah, it's moving fast. And you know, we didn't really
get into it too much in here, but that sort
of brief aside of screwcat wine being cheaper, are just less.
That's the wine you don't want to get. Yeah, that's
kind of changed too. Yeah, absolutely, a concerted effort has changed.
(39:58):
And I also think just people, sometimes you just want
that wine. You don't need that corkscrew. Right, Sometimes you
want the wine, you need the corkscrew, But sometimes you
want the wine you don't need it. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
Well, I mean you know, sometimes for example, you're you're
you're traveling and uh, you don't have a quarkscrew with you.
You couldn't have brought it through the tsa, even if
you had thought to bring one, and you know, and
you want to grab a bottle of wine screw caps
so convenient.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
I think there's a place for all these things. I agree, absolutely. Yes, Well,
people have strong opinions, so listeners, if you have strong opinion,
you can write it. Yes, oh please do yes, absolutely.
But I think that's what we have to say about
this pretty wide topic for now.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
Uh yeah, mostly because we both cut ourselves off.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
But bye.
Speaker 3 (41:00):
But we do already.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
Have some listener mail for you, and we will get
into that as soon as we get back from one
more quick break for a word from our sponsors, and
we're back.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Thank you sponsors, Yes, thank you. All right back with Strew.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
I have to say this episode, I took a lot
away from it because there was just so much information
and I have a lot of old bottles of wine,
and so now I'm worried. I'm going to test.
Speaker 3 (41:44):
Yeah, that's all you can do, you know.
Speaker 1 (41:46):
That's all I can do. GC, I don't know. Okay,
So Jacob wrote about our Apricot episode. I was listening
to your recent episodes and was excited to see an
episode about the a fruit. But was surprised you guys
didn't come across a superstition about the aforementioned stone fruit.
(42:06):
Among armored vehicle crews in the US, this golden fruit
is considered an invitation of disaster going back to World
War Two. I'll leave military historian Lieutenant Colonel Nicholas Morin
to better explain the history and the risk, and included
was a link. I did not run across this in
(42:30):
my research, but to briefly explain, apparently this because there
was a lot of attacks on landing vehicle tracks or LVTs,
which were used popularly during the Pacific theater, there was
a superstition that they all had apricots on them. So
(42:55):
it became so prominent the superstition that even if you'd
eaten an apricot, you might not be allowed on. Oh okay,
and that, and the video goes on to point out,
of course, did they target coffee, which was on every ship?
Did they target right?
Speaker 3 (43:16):
Right?
Speaker 1 (43:18):
But apricots became the thing.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
Yeah, yeah, like like bananas on boats.
Speaker 3 (43:26):
Yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
I get it. I'm not I don't know. I get
why people are superstitious. I do the same things too,
even if I don't really believe it.
Speaker 3 (43:40):
Oh sure, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
And I mean, and if it's the difference between like
okay like like we have a like, is there something
I can do to make us live that would be great?
Speaker 3 (43:50):
Not eat apricots, No problem.
Speaker 1 (43:52):
I love That's something I can control, right, refrain from that,
I recommend I'm obviously paraphrasing the video. I recommend searching
it out. But you know I didn't run across that
in my renow me neither interested to learn about it.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
Yeah, thank you for writing in. Oh goodness, Bob wrote,
It's been quite a long time since I last wrote in,
but I'm still listening and still living in China twenty
seven years in counting. Your timing is impeccable with your
Mooncake episode, as tomorrow is Mooncake Day in China, we
celebrate with a week long Golden Week holiday, which I've
(44:33):
spent mostly down in the mountains or big hills just
south of hang Zhou on our annual paragliding club trip.
The actual most important day of the mid Autumn festival
is tomorrow, the sixth of October, this year's date, but
we started receiving gifts of mooncakes about a week and
a half ago. I had to laugh at the comparison
between mooncakes and fruitcakes. It's absolutely true. It's just one
(44:56):
of those holiday traditions. I personally don't usually eat them.
My wife may have one or two during the holiday period,
but mostly they go untouched or regifted unless they're ones
we particularly like. Occasionally we will receive the snowy ones.
Speaker 3 (45:10):
They can be, Okay.
Speaker 2 (45:12):
I have to say, though, that there is one type
of mooncake that didn't seem to get onto your radar,
and they're the only ones I really like. My absolute favorites,
though somewhat non traditional, they are the ice cream mooncakes.
Several companies make them for the mid autumn festival, even
Hogs and Dogs Hogendas offers them regionally. They are quite popular,
(45:33):
I believe anyway. I just thought you might find the
idea of ice cream mooncakes interesting and wanted to let
you know that they are an option at this time
of year, and then attached a page with a bunch
of the offerings of Hogan Does from twenty twenty two
and just to give you guys a tiny bit of
(45:58):
a sampling here. Okay, so we've got dark chocolate ganash
and almond ice cream with orange chocolate cantalope melon ice
cream with Chinese oulung tea chocolate, and then a strawberry
ice cream with Kyoho grapes puree. Wow, all right, I'm
(46:24):
like okay, And they are beautiful looking boxes, very fancy.
I did run across that briefly. I might have said
I might have like said, said the word ice cream
mooncake somewhere in that episode, but I certainly did not
focus on it. But thank you, thank you for seeing
more about it and for linking to this whole product line.
Speaker 1 (46:46):
Yes, oh my gosh, you know we love that. Uh
and this is also just random shout out. This is
also Halloween times, and I know that in China and
Japan there can be some great Halloween Oh yeah, Tians.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
Yeah, I feel like we're almost shy about doing that
kind of thing in the US, but China and Japan,
I assume other places as well that have have picked
up on the American conception of Halloween just go way harder.
Speaker 3 (47:20):
And I loved it so good.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
I do as well. But yeah, thank you, because we
really wanted to know about this experience from someone who's there,
and we love looking at all the flavors that are offered.
Speaker 3 (47:38):
Also good to hear from you.
Speaker 1 (47:39):
Yes, we were just talking about you, Pop. We were
hoping you were well.
Speaker 2 (47:45):
Yes, yes, so we get attached to y'all who write
in sometimes.
Speaker 1 (47:53):
Well. Thanks to both of these listeners for writing in.
If you would like to write to us, you can
or email us hello at SAVE.
Speaker 3 (48:00):
We're also on social media.
Speaker 2 (48:02):
You can find us on blue Sky and Instagram at
saver pod and we do hope to hear from you.
Speaker 3 (48:07):
Save is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (48:09):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, you can visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Thanks us always to our super producers Dylan Fagan and
Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and we hope
that lots more good things are coming your way.
Hello, and welcome to Savor production of iHeartRadio. I'm Annie
Reach and.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
I'm Lauren Bogelbaum, and today we have an episode for
you about cork closures, cork stoppers, like for wine bottles
and stuff.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And it turns out what a whopper
of an episode.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Who Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
This was one that I suggested knowing it was going
to be kind of huge, but I really underestimated how
huge it was going to be. Also, I didn't mention
to you that I knew that it was going to
be huge, So that's my bad.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Well, I should have looked into it more before I
agreed readily, so that's on me. But wow, we were
discussing right before we started recording all of the other
offshoot episodes. We could get out of this because people
have people have thoughts, and they've written about the thought.
There's science, there's so much oh.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Yeah, and there's oh man, if we were several different
podcasts all at the same time. I have a whole
paper open over here from the CIA entitled Cork Production
and Trade, with particular emphasis on the Soviet block that
I have not read because that's about military uses of cork,
which are mostly not food related.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Yes, yes, and to be honest that there are a
lot of things that we could get into more, and
we probably will in the future in this episode. But
one of the things, one of the problems I ran into,
is that you can't talk about the cork stopper without
(01:49):
talking about the screw cap because it's such a there's
just so related. Yeah, they're just so related.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
The industry is the same industry, and so it's yep,
here we are.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Well, well, was there any particular reason this was on
your mind? Lauren?
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Oh heck, what did we talk about recently? Aham on
a barrico, Yeah, where we had mentioned cork oaks, and
I was like, oh, yeah, cork. Why haven't we ever
done an episode about quarks? And then I was like, oh,
that's why, because it's gonna take me two extra days
to read.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
About yep, as happens often.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Yeah, but uh, but right, like it had been on
my radar for a long time. Perhaps obviously our first
episode was about sparkling wine. Also, we relatively recently did
that episode on the crown cap on bottle caps, yeah,
which originally came with a little bit of cork in
(02:57):
them as an insulator and and also relatively recently, we
did that Ramine episode and talked about the cod neck bottle.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
So yeah, bottle closures are cool. They are cul cool.
Oh no, I'm going back to the two thousands.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Oh dear, this is why we're so fun at parties.
We are the most fun at parties. No.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Well, I mean perhaps saying bottle closures are cool is
enough to make that point. But they are. There's a
lot of interesting stuff going on, yes, absolutely, Oh man,
oh man, there is there is, so let's get to it.
I guess this brings us to our question cork. What
(03:49):
is it?
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Well, cork is a type of material that's harvested from
tree bark and then processed to make all kinds of things,
but most relevant to us here today stoppers for glass bottles,
especially for wine and other perishable liquids. Natural cork is
(04:11):
this material that's lightweight, elastic, It resists decay, it lasts
a long time, it insulates warmth, it's very nearly watertight
and airtight, and it literally grows on trees. It is
just excellent as a bottle stopper because it's compressible but
(04:34):
not easily broken, like if you take a piece of
cork that's just a little bit bigger around than the
neck of a bottle. You can smush it in there
and it will expand back out as much as possible,
forming a tight seal with the interior surface. It is
a sustainable natural material and its structure is just really
cool or cool?
Speaker 3 (04:54):
Quick?
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Wow? Cool? How did you say it? Fuel?
Speaker 2 (04:59):
There you go one. It makes it incredibly useful across
a number of applications. It's like a tree decided that
we should have wine corks.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
That's that's what it's like. Thank you tree, Yes, thank you.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
So the type of oak typically used for cork is
a species called Quircus super suber i. Didn't look it
up here, we are. It's an evergreen. It can grow
to be some sixty five feet that's twenty meters tall.
They like it sunny but not very rainy. It has
a sort of short trunk in these thick branches that
will support a canopy of about the same diameter as
(05:40):
its height. The cork oak has leathery green leaves and
will grow small clusters of flowers, which, if pollinated, develop
into acorns that can be used to make seed flour
or roasted as a coffee substitute or used to feed
livestock like pigs, for example. But the part of the
tree that we are mostly interested in is the bark.
(06:03):
Cork oaks grow this rough, deeply furrowed bark that's grayish
on the outside and reddish brown deeper down, and it
can grow to be like a foot thick that's like
thirty centimeters And that species name super comes from a
Greek term for wrinkled skin. The bark is good for
(06:25):
the tree because it's fire resistant, and these trees grow
in arid areas where brush fires often break out every year. Now,
lots of trees grow a certain amount of cork. It's
like a specialized layer in their bark to help insulate
the living inner part of the tree. But yeah, cork
(06:45):
oaks just go for it. They're also really the only
known trees that can have their bark harvested once every
so often and be okay. It takes a newly planted
cork oak over thirty years to produce good bark for harvest,
and they can only be harvested from once every decade
(07:06):
or so, but they can live for like over two
hundred years.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
Super cool.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Speaking of let's talk about the cellular structure of cork
that makes it so useful. Okay, So cork is made
up of closed cells that are hollow, you know, filled
with air, and they're arranged tightly in this hexagonal like
honeycomb structure. So cork is a foam. It's about eighty
(07:33):
five to ninety percent air, and the cell walls are
made of this tough lignin that's coated real thinly with
layers of waxes and fats which which insulate the cells
from air and water and other stuff too pretty well
like acids. Electron micrographs have shown that the cell walls
(07:53):
are actually a little wavy, not totally straight, which helps
form tiny crumple zone that like help preserve the overall
integrity of the material when it's crushed, and can also
be pulled on and straightened out without stretching or thinning
the material.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
So cool. These trees are really cool. Again, if we
were a different podcast, I love them.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Oh man, I got I got really into cork this week,
you guys. Okay, Anyway, cork harvesting is done by hand,
as far as I'm aware, entirely by hand everywhere, and
this is a specialized skill set you you have to
know you know how to not murder the tree while
you're removing its bark. So first you have to know
(08:42):
when it's ready, because you want to harvest when the
cork layer is in its rapid growth stage in the
spring to summer. Like, if you get in there and
realize it's not rapid growth stage enough, you have to stop,
put down what you're doing, and pick it up again
a year later when it is ready. You start with
a horizontal cut around the circumference of the trunk and
(09:04):
then make vertical cuts off of that to create sheets.
They're called planks, and you do this by feel. You
use this specialized axe to just gently thud into the
bark and then feel down for how deep you can go,
and then carefully start peeling a safe amount of bark away.
(09:26):
And yeah, the harvesters will strip the trunk and then
some of the thick lower bits of the branches. It
winds up looking like a really weird like high top fade.
And apparently these harvesters are the highest paid agricultural workers
in Europe. Wow, according to ap News. So yeah, which
(09:52):
seems like a decent link, good source for information. Uh yeah,
cork is then processed in factories to take it from
the kind of curly whirly planks that you've pulled off
of the tree to even strips that are easy to
do stuff with. So first you dry the planks, then
boil them to expand the cell structure and like flatten
(10:13):
the planks out, you know. The planks are then cut
into more manageable strips and shapes of whatever kind can
then be cut off or stamped out corks of various sizes,
maybe whole cork boards or sheets for other uses. Yeah,
and this is called natural cork, and it's going to
go through a whole cleaning process before it's sent off
(10:34):
for making cork stoppers or whatever other use, washing, disinfection,
maybe lubrication with something like paraffin or silicone. There are
grades of cork. The good stuff should be dense and
show low permeability, like via coloration from wine seeping in
on the interior end, stuff like that to make things fun.
(10:56):
Though there is no industry wide grading system, basically every
producer has their own classification. Also, low grade cork can
be filled in with cork dustin binder to make a
higher grade, but different from natural cork.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Cork.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
These are called coalmated corks. Yeah, and further, you can
use especially low grade cork and like scraps to make
what's called technical cork. Basically, you grind down the by
product from natural cork products into even granules that you
can then gently smush together using some kind of binder
(11:34):
glue basically, and then mold into whatever shape you want.
You can also make corks with a combination of both
of these techniques, like disks of natural cork attached to
technical cork. I understand that that's how sparkling wine corks
are pretty much always made, but yeah, there are all
kinds of specifications for different applications, depending on the liquid
(11:57):
to be bottled and its shelf life. Speaking of food
and drink items, cork has remained so popular a closure
for things like wine because it stops almost all airflow
into and out of the bottle. Almost A tiny bit
(12:18):
of oxygen is important to the maturation process of wines
which are supposed to mature, and a lot of research
has been done surrounding this, but essentially, both flavor and
color are affected by oxygenation, and you want a little
bit to be able to happen. The typical natural wine
cork will let in about a milligram of oxygen per year.
(12:41):
But that is not all that's going on amongst a
cork stopper and a bottle of wine, because natural cork
that's allowed to remain in contact with wine, as happens
when a wine bottle is stored on its side, will
indeed change the flavor of the wine over time, possibly
adding biteness and other kind of flavors that are not
(13:03):
necessarily considered good but are sometimes part of the flavor
profile of a wine. And believe me when I say
that research is ongoing. It's very it is very on
and very going both Indeed, of course, wine bottles are
(13:23):
not the only application for cork. You know, there's other
alcohols too, and other liquids you know, oils, vinegars, honey,
stuff like that. Many such products are assumed to be
multi use, not like more or less single use as
with a bottle of wine. I mean, of course, you
can squeeze a cork back into a wine bottle or
use a different stopper to keep it fresh for a
(13:45):
couple of days, But yeah, it doesn't really stand up
to like multiple use, which is why quarks on things
like liquor or olive oil, are made with a grippable
cap attached to the quark so that it can be
removed and replaced by hand any number of times. And
cork is used for lots of other stuff, cork boards,
perhaps obviously, It's used for cork leather, for gaskets in
(14:08):
woodwind instruments, as an insulator in flooring and footwear, and
all kinds of industrial applications. Cork is used in the
heat shields of some spacecraft.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
It's really amazing how much the application of cork is
all the things that it's been used for. On a
much less serious note, my friend who helped me get
into wine, she gave me all these like cork magnets.
(14:41):
Oh so after the wine is done, make a magnet
out of the cork. I love it. It's great, all right,
Well what about the nutrition?
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Do not eat cork?
Speaker 1 (15:00):
I'll also also drink responsibly. Sure, well, yeah, we do
have some numbers for you.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Oh we do, okay, So the harvest of natural cork
is estimated to be around two hundred tons a year,
about half of which is in Portugal, nearly a third
of which is in Spain. So there's like a smattering
around basically the rest of north and south of the Mediterranean. Yeah,
(15:30):
in Portugal, it's nearly a billion euro a year industry,
with seventy two percent of that value coming from making
wine stoppers. Note that only about fifteen percent of harvested
cork goes to the wine industry. It's just really valuable there.
(15:51):
Portugal sells the most cork to France than the US.
It is the national tree of Portugal. Worldwide, we produced
nearly thirteen billion cork wine stoppers every year, and I
think that that's a little less than half of all
wine closures, and I believe that that includes both technical
(16:15):
and natural quarks. I read that screwcap wine is now
the industry leader, with some thirty seven percent of the
market share, which if accurate, indicates just a drastic shift,
not only in the past thirty years before which it
(16:35):
was essentially unheard of, but just in the past five
to ten years. We're gonna have to do a separate episode.
We'll talk a little bit more about it in the
history anyway, world records. The tallest cork oak on record
is in France. It is twenty one meters tall. That's
a little over sixty eight feet, which is around the
(16:57):
height of like a seven story building. It's I know right.
It's been around since at least the eighteen nineties when
it was remarked upon in a travel diary. I think
that it took the record in twenty twenty four from
the previously labeled largest cork coke, which is different from tallest,
(17:19):
but anyway, the corkok in question is this Portuguese tree,
believed to have been planted in seventeen eighty three. It's
nicknamed the Whistler's tree for the songbirds that inhabit it.
It's been harvested from over twenty times. The last few
times that it's been harvested, it yielded enough for some
(17:41):
one hundred thousand wine stoppers, like something near a thousand
kilos or like two thousand pounds of raw cork.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
I'm telling you, these trees are cool. They're so cool
them up. Oh they're really pretty. You've been written about
the environmentalism of them. Oh yeah, you can do this, yeah,
live yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Speaking of quarkk forests are some of the most biodiverse
forests in the world, with a plant diversity of up
to one hundred and thirty five species per square meter.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
So cool, so cool.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Also, there is an International Conference on Quark Science and Applications.
Its fifth iteration is happening this year twenty twenty five,
on the thirteenth and fourteenth of October in Lisbon, Portugal.
So we are weirdly timely for once. Yeah I didn't
even I didn't plan that one, but but yeah, if
(18:48):
you're going, oh, if you've been oh my goodness.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Please please listeners cool. No, yes, yes, oh my, but okay,
we do have quite a history for you.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Uh huh, yep, yep, we do.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Uh and we are going to get into that as
soon as we get back from a quick break for
a word from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
And we're back. Thank you, sponsors, Yes, thank you. Okay. So,
the cork oak is indigenous to southern Europe and Africa. Again,
we're a food show, so the tree itself is a
whole separate thing. But yes, people have been using cork
for all kinds of things for over four thousand years,
(19:47):
for sandal souls, for floatation vnitili, and yes, as a
way to plug containers like barrels or jars. Archaeologist working
in Pompeii or on Anci Greek shipwrecks have uncovered amphori,
which were a popular type of jar or container, frequently
(20:07):
stopped up with a QRK. Some of these amphor i
date back to ten to one BCE and they were
pretty widespread in ancient room. They've even been discovered as
far as India and England.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Yeah, and m foi are that bottle type that has
a sort of like teardrop shape with the pointed end
being the bottom and then atop the wide end of
the tear drop you've got a thinner neck and like
double handles.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
These were wax lined ceramics that were invented in Egypt,
and different materials were used as stoppers over history, often
some combination of like reeds, leaves and or rags and
then a sealant like a softer clay than the jar,
or a wax maybe. But the Romans hit on cork
and they loved it. Plenty wrote about the cork oak
(20:59):
early in the an era as a tree with bad acorns,
but useful bark.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Bad acorns.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
It was like they are insufficient in number and not
good for eating. Or that's not a direct quote, but
that was the gist.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
That sounds like a movie company, like a production company.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
Bad acorn, bad acorns.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Oh no, yeah, Well, in any case, after the Roman
Empire fell in four hundred and seventy six CE, cork
seemed to fall out of common use, at least given
the written record. That didn't change until glass bottles became
more ubiquitous in the seventeenth century. Previously, people had been
(21:41):
using cloth covered wood instead. According to researchers, the French
were the ones who brought back cork as the preferred
wine stopper, since it held up better to liquid. In
Gervais Markham's sixteen to fifteen work The English Housewife, he
described the process using cork to bottle beer. The cork
(22:03):
was further secured with strong thread to keep it in
place in the face of increasing carbonation, a problem that
also plagued sparkling wines, and as discussed in our Sparkling
Wine episode, this led to a lot of consternation and
superstitions for sparkling wine producers until the invention of the
wired cage to hold the cork in place, called a
(22:24):
museulee in the nineteenth century. It's kind of interesting to
me how many of these things were still using.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Oh yeah, they were just like, well, that works, just fine,
Let's keep going.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
That works, let's keep doing it. Oh okay. Speaking of
the seventeenth century is also probably when the corkscrew was invented,
specifically for wine. Before that, quirks had these small nubs
on the edge so that consumers could remove them with
their hands. But with improved glass bottles growing demand, and
(22:55):
specifically in the UK, from what I read, a desire
to store bottles sideways, people were looking for another method,
Thus the corkscrew. A sixteen eighty one museum catalog described
a corkscrew as a steel worm used for the drawing
of quarks out of bottles, which is a separate episode.
(23:15):
Oh yes, oh yes, but I desperately want to return
to it because I'm curious about When we did our
can opener episode, we talked about how a lot of
people don't know how to use can openers anymore. I'm
wondering if corkscrews are falling into that category. But you
also were discussing they're very fancy.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Corkscrew Oh yeah, yeah, cork removers right right right right,
All of these like sixty to one hundred dollars devices
that you get it. You know, like whatever the equivalent
these days is of Sharper image. I don't know if
Sharper image still exists, but right, and it's like some
kind of device that just magically removes the quark from
your wine with absolutely no effort on your part. And
(23:59):
I feel like these are cheating. And also I do
not need sixty dollars on a device when the three
dollar one that you can get from any reputable liquor
store will work absolutely better, or maybe not better, but
just you know, it will do just as well. Yeah,
you just have to look for the one that has
the little hinge in one side of it so that
(24:20):
you can.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Notch it in.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Yeah, boop up as you move the anyway, strong opinions
at any rate. Around the same time, the middle of
the sixteen hundreds, scientists were figuring out more about microscopy
and biology. One of the first samples of a plant
(24:45):
that Robert Hook examined under his microscope in the early
sixteen sixties was quark like this is the material where
he noticed the structure of the microscopic pores in the
sample and called them cells, meaning a small chamber named
for monks quarters. That's why we still call the things
(25:09):
that make up plant and animal bodies and funguses as
well cells because of cork. He also further surmised that
the shape and arrangement of those cells are responsible for
the physical properties of cork, which is of course correct
more or less not super relevant to like wine stoppers,
(25:30):
but just really cool niche in history there absolutely oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Meanwhile, cork remained the favorite stopper for non sparkling wines.
Commercial cork production got underway in the eighteenth century in
areas where the cork oak crew. The process of cork
harvesting has remained largely unchanged since then.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Yeah, yep, speaking of commercial cork productions. So colonists did
bring cork oaks to what would become the United States
back in the sixteen hundreds, and the trees can be
found in spots around the country today, but they're one
Mediterranean crop that just never took off in California, however,
(26:17):
there was some kerfuffle about cork shortages during World War Two,
because so by nineteen forty, the US was importing about
half the world's cork for use in manufacturing all kinds
of things, consumer products like bottle caps, which right had
the cork linings before plastic hit the scene, cork flooring,
(26:39):
car insulation, but also other forms of insulation up to
and including in bomber planes. So Germany blockaded US. It
became a whole thing. There was suspected sabotage from a
cork factory fire in Baltimore, there was corporate espionage over imports,
(27:00):
and so although it did not actually help the war
effort because the trees again take decades to mature, people
from youth clubs to state governors were like actively and
patriotically planting cork trees around the US. You see, Davis
for example, has like five hundred or so. And also
(27:21):
they have a campus tree map if you're ever over
that way and you want to like look at some
specific trees.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
Yes, right, listeners, let us know.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Apparently they did a harvest of one of the corks
on a cork oaks on campus relatively recently, and like
they had like a whole like they've got signage up
to like explain why it looks the way that it does.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
I love it. I love it. That's fantastic. All right.
Here we get into a lot of the twist and
turns of recent decades when it comes to cork.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
That is kind of a screw cap pun. But here
we go.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Yeah, thank you, Laurreen. Yes, you see what I'm doing.
All right. So, beginning in the nineteen nineties, there was
a decline of cork production and a decrease in cork value.
This was largely blamed on plastic stoppers and screw tops
when it came to wine. In two thousand and two,
(28:25):
founder of California's Bonnie Dune Winery, Randall Graham, orchestrated a
funeral for the corkscrew in New York's Grand Central Station. Okay,
okay oh. I had to look into this to make
sure I was not being pranked by the onion or something,
but it did happen. Trumpets announced the arrival of a
(28:48):
hearse transporting the casket of a cork dummy named Tiri Bouchan,
which is French for corkscrew. The eulogy was delivered by
famous wine writer Chansis Robinson with the opening line, Oh cork,
Oh cork, Oh, corky cork, how we shall miss thy
(29:09):
cylindrical barkie majesty. This was in part to advertise the
largest US bottling of fine wine with screw caps eighty
thousand bottles of one of Graham's own wines. Before that,
screw caps were largely associated with cheap wines, and so
he was trying to turn that image around. Obviously, the
(29:33):
cork industry was not happy about this, and it caused
a huge ordeal. Graham himself later went on to explain
he had no idea that the stunt would cause such
a stir, and that he'd started experimenting with synthetic stoppers
in nineteen ninety six to combat cork taint, eventually settling
(29:56):
on screw caps. So, cork taint is when, yes, the
cork gets contaminated with two four six trichlorinisol, which gives
the wine that unpleasant smell and it spoils the wine.
It's yeah, it's the reason why you might sometimes be
asked to smell the cork. And this whole thing TCA
(30:16):
was first discovered in nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
Yeah, yeah, TCA right, And so if a restaurant hands
you a cork and like a mini pore of wine
from a bottle that you ordered, you are meant to
appraise them for whether they're tainted by TCA or some
other obvious issue. There the restaurant is not asking you
for your emotions about the wine. They're showing you that
A you're getting the bottle that you ordered, and B
(30:43):
it's drinkable wine and does not seem to have gone
to vinegar or like taste like wet cardboard.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
I will reiterate it is really bad.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
I've never had this happen to me, but it is.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
You know, I don't like to things away. I have
poured out a bottle of them. Oh wow, bad.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Okay, Yeah, Apparently TCA is particularly we are humans are
particularly sensitive to it.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
So yeah, well, and it was a big problem, and
it led to the invention of the screw cap for
wine in the first place. So again, separate episode, but
it's so closely related. Yeah, Like I got a touch
like that, like very briefly.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Yeah. So the screw cap for wine was developed in
nineteen fifty nine by French bottle manufacturer Le Bouchon Mechanique,
and in nineteen sixty four it was requested by an
Australian winery that was fed up with cork taint. And
this was partly because exporting wine from Australia was a
lengthy process. It's so far away from everything that there
(31:53):
was more time and opportunity for their wines to get
cork taint. While screwtops weren't new, they were pretty new
when it came to wine, and at first they encountered
a lot of resistance from cork producers, wine producers and consumers.
It took decades for them to become a more commonplace
(32:15):
in the nineties and two thousands, in part due to
a concerted effort by Australian winemakers to bottle their best
wines and screwtops. Over time, the screwtops were further improved
to allow in some air for the aging process, as
discussed if you look it up, like New Zealand and
Australia they have the most screwtop wines and there's also
(32:41):
a reason they were pretty They led the way when
it came to box wine as well, so see our
boxed wine episode for more on that. Yes, absolutely, plastic
win stoppers came onto the scene in the nineteen eighties
and this whole thing, the rise of groog caps for
wine because of the frustration with TCA, prompted the cork
(33:04):
industry to try to get rid of TCA in their
quarks and they use some really expensive technology and labs
to do it. Recently they have about a ninety nine
percent success rate.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
And that is why restaurants well a reason why a
restaurants still do like the cork and sample presentation thing
because one percent is very low, but it is not zero,
and if you're going through one at a volume, you
will eventually find it. Also, there are other strains of
molds that can get in there. Believe me, the industry
(33:39):
is working on it. There was a shift towards alternative
bottle stoppers for both inexpensive and premium wines for a
couple decades there. As a result of all of this,
the premium category is slowly switching back to cork. In
some cases. Some producers really like those modern airflow screw
(34:00):
caps that the airflow screw caps provide oxygen flow the
most similar to natural cork. Synthetic quarks give you too
much oxygen flow like they provide the most oxygen flow
in and out, and traditional screw caps provide the least,
so too little. Anyway, I read a lot about oxygen
(34:22):
flow into bottles of wine.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
I hear you, Lauren, I did too, And speaking of
there are other pieces of this arguments the loss of
the ritual of opening a corked bottle of wine versus
also the convenience of not needing a corkscrew to that end.
The zork closure. I learned that this is a whole
(34:46):
game that I want to research from the eighties from MIT,
I think, but if we're not talking about that. The
zork closure was invented in two thousand and three. This
is a combination of the screw cap and the quark
seals like a screwcap bottle and pops like the cork one,
so you still kind of get that ritual. The metacork
(35:06):
is another one which keeps the cork but eliminates the
need for a quirkscrew, which was invented around the same time.
I think I've actually experienced both of these. I've seen
them in the wild. There are a lot of other
examples too. I have to say these are just a
mirror smattering.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
Oh yeah, oh yeah. I did not even go into
all of that. I was like, different episodes because right, like,
we're doing cork right now because we kind of need
it first before we can tackle screw caps or synthetic qrks. Like,
probably we should have done it before bottle caps for
(35:46):
a proper liquid bottle closure timeline. But here we are, here,
we are. Yeah, at any rate, it is truly wild
how intensely the market has diversified over the past thirty years.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
Meanwhile, the aforementioned Whistler tree was designated a tree of
Public Interest in nineteen eighty eight, and it won European
Tree of the Year in twenty eighteen. A contest that
I need to learn more about.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
A tree a public interest.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
Oh yeah, that too.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
Yeah, that sounds like the tree has done something. It's
got like it's poster up.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
I assume it's it's it's like a like a like
a historical landmark kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
But I like where your brain is going.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
Oh no, I've seen this tree's picture in trees up
to stuff. Yeah, I love that. I love that, Okay.
In recent years. In recent years, cork trees have been
producing thinner strips of bark, which is a problem for
making quarks. Researchers suspect climate change that that is to blame.
(37:06):
There's also been conversations around the ego friendliness or not
of screw gaps and cork so as mentioned, cork oaks
just have this biome that's really really amazing. So there's
been a lot of discussion about that.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, as always. I mean there's you know,
like the care and stewardship of natural resources like trees
and the resources that it takes to create petroleum products
like plastic. But we'll have to go into it another
time at any rate. Yes, one last historical note here.
(37:47):
Just this year, there was some worry about Cork economically
amid the Trump Administration's tariffs, which, to review very briefly,
tariffs are taxes that a government charges its own citizens
in order to import products made outside of their country.
(38:07):
So the Trump administrations tariffs are taxes that we Americans
pay to import anything we want from not here. I'm
sure a lot of y'all know that. It seems like
there's been some confusion about it lately, possibly from the
administration itself. So I just thought I just thought I
might mention that that's what that means anyway, Cork. Yeah, both
(38:31):
Portuguese diplomats and California wine and industry folks really campaigned
for an exemption from the tariff on EU products, which
as of recently was set at fifteen percent, and the
exemption happened. Good for them as of September first, it
(38:52):
happened anyway, These things are moving fast.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
Yeah, thing is moving so fast.
Speaker 3 (39:03):
Yep, yep, yep.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
And as as mentioned repeatedly throughout this episode, people are
doing the research. Things are changing fast. Like even the
numbers we said.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Yeah, yeah, I like right, like there were a few
places in here where I was reporting on numbers that
were from good sources. But I was like, oh, I'm
not that was three years ago. That was yeah, not
totally sure.
Speaker 1 (39:32):
Yeah, it's moving fast. And you know, we didn't really
get into it too much in here, but that sort
of brief aside of screwcat wine being cheaper, are just less.
That's the wine you don't want to get. Yeah, that's
kind of changed too. Yeah, absolutely, a concerted effort has changed.
(39:58):
And I also think just people, sometimes you just want
that wine. You don't need that corkscrew. Right, Sometimes you
want the wine, you need the corkscrew, But sometimes you
want the wine you don't need it. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
Well, I mean you know, sometimes for example, you're you're
you're traveling and uh, you don't have a quarkscrew with you.
You couldn't have brought it through the tsa, even if
you had thought to bring one, and you know, and
you want to grab a bottle of wine screw caps
so convenient.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
I think there's a place for all these things. I agree, absolutely. Yes, Well,
people have strong opinions, so listeners, if you have strong opinion,
you can write it. Yes, oh please do yes, absolutely.
But I think that's what we have to say about
this pretty wide topic for now.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
Uh yeah, mostly because we both cut ourselves off.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
But bye.
Speaker 3 (41:00):
But we do already.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
Have some listener mail for you, and we will get
into that as soon as we get back from one
more quick break for a word from our sponsors, and
we're back.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Thank you sponsors, Yes, thank you. All right back with Strew.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
I have to say this episode, I took a lot
away from it because there was just so much information
and I have a lot of old bottles of wine,
and so now I'm worried. I'm going to test.
Speaker 3 (41:44):
Yeah, that's all you can do, you know.
Speaker 1 (41:46):
That's all I can do. GC, I don't know. Okay,
So Jacob wrote about our Apricot episode. I was listening
to your recent episodes and was excited to see an
episode about the a fruit. But was surprised you guys
didn't come across a superstition about the aforementioned stone fruit.
(42:06):
Among armored vehicle crews in the US, this golden fruit
is considered an invitation of disaster going back to World
War Two. I'll leave military historian Lieutenant Colonel Nicholas Morin
to better explain the history and the risk, and included
was a link. I did not run across this in
(42:30):
my research, but to briefly explain, apparently this because there
was a lot of attacks on landing vehicle tracks or LVTs,
which were used popularly during the Pacific theater, there was
a superstition that they all had apricots on them. So
(42:55):
it became so prominent the superstition that even if you'd
eaten an apricot, you might not be allowed on. Oh okay,
and that, and the video goes on to point out,
of course, did they target coffee, which was on every ship?
Did they target right?
Speaker 3 (43:16):
Right?
Speaker 1 (43:18):
But apricots became the thing.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
Yeah, yeah, like like bananas on boats.
Speaker 3 (43:26):
Yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:30):
I get it. I'm not I don't know. I get
why people are superstitious. I do the same things too,
even if I don't really believe it.
Speaker 3 (43:40):
Oh sure, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
And I mean, and if it's the difference between like
okay like like we have a like, is there something
I can do to make us live that would be great?
Speaker 3 (43:50):
Not eat apricots, No problem.
Speaker 1 (43:52):
I love That's something I can control, right, refrain from that,
I recommend I'm obviously paraphrasing the video. I recommend searching
it out. But you know I didn't run across that
in my renow me neither interested to learn about it.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
Yeah, thank you for writing in. Oh goodness, Bob wrote,
It's been quite a long time since I last wrote in,
but I'm still listening and still living in China twenty
seven years in counting. Your timing is impeccable with your
Mooncake episode, as tomorrow is Mooncake Day in China, we
celebrate with a week long Golden Week holiday, which I've
(44:33):
spent mostly down in the mountains or big hills just
south of hang Zhou on our annual paragliding club trip.
The actual most important day of the mid Autumn festival
is tomorrow, the sixth of October, this year's date, but
we started receiving gifts of mooncakes about a week and
a half ago. I had to laugh at the comparison
between mooncakes and fruitcakes. It's absolutely true. It's just one
(44:56):
of those holiday traditions. I personally don't usually eat them.
My wife may have one or two during the holiday period,
but mostly they go untouched or regifted unless they're ones
we particularly like. Occasionally we will receive the snowy ones.
Speaker 3 (45:10):
They can be, Okay.
Speaker 2 (45:12):
I have to say, though, that there is one type
of mooncake that didn't seem to get onto your radar,
and they're the only ones I really like. My absolute favorites,
though somewhat non traditional, they are the ice cream mooncakes.
Several companies make them for the mid autumn festival, even
Hogs and Dogs Hogendas offers them regionally. They are quite popular,
(45:33):
I believe anyway. I just thought you might find the
idea of ice cream mooncakes interesting and wanted to let
you know that they are an option at this time
of year, and then attached a page with a bunch
of the offerings of Hogan Does from twenty twenty two
and just to give you guys a tiny bit of
(45:58):
a sampling here. Okay, so we've got dark chocolate ganash
and almond ice cream with orange chocolate cantalope melon ice
cream with Chinese oulung tea chocolate, and then a strawberry
ice cream with Kyoho grapes puree. Wow, all right, I'm
(46:24):
like okay, And they are beautiful looking boxes, very fancy.
I did run across that briefly. I might have said
I might have like said, said the word ice cream
mooncake somewhere in that episode, but I certainly did not
focus on it. But thank you, thank you for seeing
more about it and for linking to this whole product line.
Speaker 1 (46:46):
Yes, oh my gosh, you know we love that. Uh
and this is also just random shout out. This is
also Halloween times, and I know that in China and
Japan there can be some great Halloween Oh yeah, Tians.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
Yeah, I feel like we're almost shy about doing that
kind of thing in the US, but China and Japan,
I assume other places as well that have have picked
up on the American conception of Halloween just go way harder.
Speaker 3 (47:20):
And I loved it so good.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
I do as well. But yeah, thank you, because we
really wanted to know about this experience from someone who's there,
and we love looking at all the flavors that are offered.
Speaker 3 (47:38):
Also good to hear from you.
Speaker 1 (47:39):
Yes, we were just talking about you, Pop. We were
hoping you were well.
Speaker 2 (47:45):
Yes, yes, so we get attached to y'all who write
in sometimes.
Speaker 1 (47:53):
Well. Thanks to both of these listeners for writing in.
If you would like to write to us, you can
or email us hello at SAVE.
Speaker 3 (48:00):
We're also on social media.
Speaker 2 (48:02):
You can find us on blue Sky and Instagram at
saver pod and we do hope to hear from you.
Speaker 3 (48:07):
Save is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (48:09):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, you can visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Thanks us always to our super producers Dylan Fagan and
Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and we hope
that lots more good things are coming your way.
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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