OREANDA-NEWS. August 8, 2007. Specialists from Artyomovsk Winery invited by the top management of AMORIM Group visited Portugal, a land where of cork stopper was invented. They would like to get familiarized technology of production and methods of laboratory analysis. Today, Artyomovsk Winery discovers for you secret of how cork stopper is made.

Yet over 30 years of co-operation do connect Аrtyomovsk Winery - the biggest Eastern European company for traditional bottled sparkling wine-making and AMORIM Group , a world-wide leader in the branch of cork stopper making. The history of the company started in  1870, when Antonio Alvesh de Amorim had begun to make stoppers of cork tree bark in Villa Nova de Galla, where yet in that time a famous Port had been shipped and sent to different markets.  After almost 140 yeas, AMORIM is the biggest cork-making company in the world, with annual capacity of 3 billion  (3 000 000 000 000) stoppers a year, and exporting their products to the countries of Europe, Northern and Southern America, Australia, Africa and Asia.

It is sure that everyone of us when opening the bottle with sparkling wine does not think about number of life cycles of the cork stopper... Before being inserted into bottle of sparkling wine, the cork does live a full circle of life.

Cork is a bark of cork tree. This "non-standard" tree is growing at the Western part of Mediterranean, and can achieve the age of 300-400 years. Portugal is the biggest world maker of this raw material; its market share makes approximately 54% of the global capacity. Bark of cork tree is a natural media; its unique physical and chemical properties let use it in very different spheres of application: wine-making, building, motor vehicle manufacture, space, and shoe-making. To obtain first cork from the bark of the tree, 43 years are required, because first layer of the bark shall be  stripped after 25 years of life of the tree, the second one-after nine years more, and only upon expiry of 9 years, the bark could be used for manufacturing of the cork. 

 In view of the fact that stripped bark of the tree is certainly moist, it shall be dried naturally, at the open air, during not less than 6 months.

After that, the cork is getting boiled (cork plates are in boiling water not less than one hour), in order to make them more elastic and flexible, and to disinfect and apply hygiene thereon.

And, only since this, manufacture of the cork of the following kinds starts: natural, sintered, T-CorkR, NeutrocorkR, and Twin TopR.  Finished corks undergo numerous tests: micro-biologic, organoleptic, shape, and functional.
Sparkling -wine makers are supplied by AMORIM with special kind of the stopper SPARKR. Results of active scientific and technological analysis are highest level of physical, chemical, and oenological efficiency attributed to SPARKR stopper. It shows excellent mechanical properties, and is easy-to-cork up.