The Cellar - Feb 6th, 2019: Cork

♫ And put in your ear plugs
Put on your eye shades
♫ You know where to put the cork
I know where to put the cork, but where do I get one

Ladies and Gentleman and Children of all ages. At great trouble and expense we present to you.
~The Whistler~ 2018 European Tree of the Year ~234 year old CORK OAK (QUERCUS SUBER)

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The Whistler owes the name to the sound from countless birds that lay on its branches. Planted in 1783 in Águas de Moura, this cork oak has already been stripped more than twenty times. In addition to the contribution to the cork industry, it has huge relevance for ecosystem services and fighting climate change. With 234 years, the Whistler has been classified as "Tree of Public Interest" since 1988 and is registered in the Guinness Book of Records: "the largest cork oak in the world".

Trees can be useful in many ways. They can provide food through fruits or nuts, building materials by milling their trunks, or shade in cities beneath their canopies. But the Quercus suber has been used for centuries for a different purpose: its bark is the source of cork. The versatile material can be harvested many times throughout a tree’s lifetime, but one particular tree in Portugal is so large that it produced more cork in a single harvest than most others in their entire life cycles.

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The first harvest, called ‘desboia’, produces poor quality cork, and needs to be processed heavily before use. The next harvest doesn’t happen for another 9 – 18 years, until the second harvest, or ‘secundeira’, takes place. This harvest is slightly higher quality, but still unfit for bottle stoppers.
Starting with the third harvest, more than 50 years since its planting, cork oaks produce high quality material. The bark is stripped with an ax, carefully as not to damage the tree itself, and left outdoors for 6 months to stabilize. Most of it is destined to become bottle stoppers, which continue to be hugely popular for another legendary Mediterranean product: wine.

No where in the world are cork trees more common than in Portugal. They are also common in Spain, but for various reasons cork production has been concentrated in Portugal. Currently the small country produces half of all cork worldwide. Spain comes in second at 31%, and Morocco a distant third.
The significance of cork trees in Portugal has been recognized for centuries. It makes up 23% of the countries forests, and the first laws protecting the trees date all the way back to the 13th century. A law passed in the 1970s made it a crime to cut down a cork tree, dead or alive, without explicit permission from the government. In 2011, it was made the national tree of Portugal by unanimous vote.

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Cork is a fundamental part of the Portuguese economy, accounting for 1% of the country’s GDP and 3% of total exports. A total of 12 000 people are employed full-time in the cork industry, while a mammoth 100 000 are involved during the harvesting season.
Portugal needs the cork industry and the 12 billion cork stoppers that are annually produced by this entire industry is a key part of the business.

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“At €100 per hour, cork harvesting is the world’s highest paying seasonal, agricultural job. This highly specialised work sustains many families”; explains Carlos. Although this work is unlikely to be mechanised, Amorim CEO Antonio Amorim indicated that more precise farming methods involving cork trees could be the way of the future.

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