Some wines see no oak at all, but are kept in stainless steel tanks to preserve the fresh fruity characteristics.

Finally, the wine is ready and is prepared for bottling. Often, filtration is used to make the wine bright and clear, and to remove any risk of microbialspoilage. The glass on the left has been filtered; on the right you can see what it was like just before the process.

lalasticlala teach people to make wine na.

explorers god bless you

I can relate

Quite a process

How cork is made An illustrated guide to the cork production process.



It all starts in the forest. Cork oaks are harvested every nine years, once they reach maturity. It doesn't harm the tree, and the cork bark regrows. Most cork forests are in Portugal and Spain.

The year of harvest is marked on the trunk, so each tree isn't harvested at the wrong time. Cork is a great insulating material, and gives these oaks a chance to survive the forest fires that occasionally happen in the hot Mediterranean summers.

Here's a close-up of a tree that was harvested the year previously.

The harvested cork planks are stored before processing. Good cork companies will store them on concrete rather than bare earth, lowering the risk of contamination.


Before processing, the cork planks are put on pallets. Then they are ready for the first stage in the cork production process: boiling. The following pictures were taken at Amorim's facility in Coruche, ion the south of Portugal.

This is a close-up of a piece of harvested plank or bark.

Explorers

The planks or barks are boiled to soften them, and also to clean them. In the bad olddays these would be boiled in murky pits without the water being changed very often. Now, to avoid cross-contamination, the water is cleaned, filteredand replenished regularly, with volatiles being removed on a continuous basis.

The boiled planks are flatter and easier to work with.

Next, the planks are graded and cut into workable pieces.

This is a nice-looking piece of plank.

Explorers ayam witch u
like a hunchback

These workers are hand-punching corks from strips of the bark, these will be high-end corks. Others are machine punched.

It is a skilled process, make the wrong decisions and the corks aren't good enough, or cork is wasted.

What remains of the planks after the corks have been punched.

The corks are optically sorted: blasts of air are used to send the corks into the right grade bins.

Then the corks are sorted by eye.

Great care is taken sorting the top grade corks.

Explorers, you are the man!

Thought about the cork when I opened a bottle of wine few days ago, but it seemed so inconsequential at the time.

Keep it coming...following bumper to bumper

Adesiji77:
Explorers, you are the man!

Thought about the cork when I opened a bottle of wine few days ago, but it seemed so inconsequential at the time.

Keep it coming...following bumper to bumper

Ive been trying to figure out the production also, anytime i open a bottle of wine, first thing is to bite the cork. Very soft, so ive been wondering what it was made of untill this morning.


Thanks bro.

ichommy:
Explorers

Smiles....Same here bro.

If you are on Nairaland and you haven't been to Explorer Avenue, then you are missing.

Just bookmark Explorer profile.....

TheAziz:
explorers god bless you

Amen, u 2 bro. Thanks.

Sleekyshuga:
Interesting

I remember a MCBist who locally produced red wine as his M.Sc work.

Very useful information, Explorers. Well done.

Tnx

Nice one dude, I've always wondered how the Cork enter the wine bottle and it refusing to enter after opening it.

OsoDupe:
Nice one dude, I've always wondered how the Cork enter the wine bottle and it refusing to enter after opening it.

I guess he is still coming to that.. That was the first question on my mind when I opened this thread

OsoDupe:
Nice one dude, I've always wondered how the Cork enter the wine bottle and it refusing to enter after opening it.

Thats the work of cockers, they have been designed to compress or sqeeze the cork into the bottle applying little pressure.


There are different types of cockers, the attached image is just a home cocker.
The factory cockers will be large capacity machines at the bottling line, corcking hunderd bottles in minutes.


cc: tk4rd