Cork

Cork – French: bouchon.
The outer bark of the cork-oak. It takes a cork-oak 30 years to provide cork for the first time. After that you can harvest it every ten years.
Portugal is the largest cork-oak producer in the world.
Cork is also the naming for a pollution in the bottle.
This is caused by TCA: Trichlooranysol.

The effect of this “corked taste” is a loss of scent, mainly the fruit in the wine.
After that a stale scent which is described in various manners:
Mould, damp cellars, old churches or wet newspapers.
The corky pollution is a chemical process in the bottle.
It is a reaction of chlorine or bromine, caused by a bad cork or when the space in which the wine, bottle, cork, box etc. is held is cleaned with chlorine.

Cork is not the best sealing by definition,
For the last centuries it was the best sealing which was technically possible.

The alternatives for a cork sealing:
* A cork made from synthetic material. Well suited for wines which cannot age.
They do however give off a certain smell to the wine after several years.
* A glass cork, re-sealable. Costly, but pretty and effective.
* The Stelvin or: screw cap.
This holds the future. Experiments have shown that ripening under the screw cap elapses even better than under cork: the wine preserves more freshness and fruit.
The screw cap is more expensive than cork, because the bottle has to be made very precise so no leakage can occur.