Production Process.

The cork can only be harvested by experts—the cork harvesters—to avoid damaging the cork oak. The process consists of six steps, and it takes two men for each tree.

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After being harvested, the cork is left to rest for six months before industrial processing actually begins. This allows its moisture content to become uniform. The slabs are stacked on large concrete surfaces built on a slightly sloped plane to prevent microbial contamination and maximize air circulation.

The cork slabs are soaked in stainless steel tanks filled with clean water for at least one hour. The goal is to remove the organic solids trapped in the pores and allow the cork to reach the correct moisture content for processing. This process allows the gas trapped in the cork cells to expand, resulting in a more uniform structure and an increase in volume of about 20%.

After firing, the cork undergoes another stabilization period. This process lasts two to three weeks and serves to flatten the planks and allow them to settle.

After the curing period, technical experts sort the slabs based on their thickness, porosity, and appearance. The thickest slabs consist of high-quality cork that can be used to make natural corks. The thinnest slabs are cut into discs for technical corks.

Once selected, the cork slabs suitable for the production of natural cork stoppers are cut into strips slightly wider than the length of the stoppers to be manufactured.

Punching is the name of the process of drilling holes in cork strips using a drill. The result is a perfectly cylindrical cork stopper obtained directly from the cork sheet.
All waste generated during the punching phase is subsequently ground up and reused as cork granules for technical cork stoppers.

The purpose of this operation is to sort the finished caps into different grades, which are determined by automatically scanning their surfaces. In some cases, the sorting is done visually and manually, relying on the human eye. During this phase, in addition to establishing the quality grades, defective caps are removed.

The stoppers are washed after grinding to clean and disinfect them. After washing and disinfection, the moisture content of the stoppers stabilizes, ensuring optimal sealing performance while reducing microbiological contamination.

When corks have high levels of porosity, they can be filled. Filling involves sealing the pores on the surface of the cork stoppers (lenticels) with a mixture of cork powder obtained from the trimming of natural cork stoppers. A food-grade adhesive is used to bind the powder to the pores (lenticels). This process is used to improve the visual appearance of the stopper and its performance.

After baking, the two roughest sides of the cork slabs are removed to produce smooth, uniform sheets of cork about 6.5 mm thick. These sheets are mechanically cut into circles—discs the size of the ends of the corks to be manufactured.

The bodies of technical corks are made from granules obtained from byproducts of high-quality cork products and from the die-cutting of natural cork stoppers.
These byproducts are processed into granules of various sizes using grinding machines. The granules are then bonded with food-grade adhesive, and the bodies are individually molded.

The discs and agglomerated cores are fed into assembly machines. The discs pass in front of cameras that select the side of the disc that will come into contact with the wine. The machine imprints a mark on the opposite side of the cork.
This mark is detected by a camera in the assembly machine, indicating that this is the side that will be glued to the cork body. The discs are glued to the end of the agglomerated cork cylinder using food-grade adhesive.

The assembled cork stopper is left to dry until the adhesive is completely dry, after which the grinding phase begins. Here, as with natural cork stoppers, the stoppers are ground to achieve the required dimensions.
From this point on, the washing, sorting, finishing, and packaging processes are similar to those for natural cork stoppers.