You can produce the best wine but if you don’t have the right cork to seal it, it’s a pure waste. The cork is essential for the conservation of the wine. It is from ancient Greece In ancient Greece, cork was already used to seal wine amphora. Set aside and forgotten during the middle age period in Europe, the cork came back with the invention of glass bottle in the 17th century. The bark is extracted from cork oak trees, the cork is directly shaped out in the block.   A good cork is a hermetical cork The first quality of a cork is to be hermetical but let the wine 'breathe' (air can go through the cork). The elasticity of the cork makes it a perfect sealing material, even if the temperature varies. To keep its natural properties the cork has to be wet: make sure that the wine is in contact with the cork while storing your bottle (long term storage).   A wine can be ... corked A corked wine can have aromas of wet cardboard, damp socks, and dare we say it, the smell of a wet dog! Wine Tips: How to Tell If Your Wine is Corked?   Cork is still preferred to other sealing materials The synthetic corks are cheaper but lack of elasticity and can be only used for wine supposed to be drunk young. Metallic caps are totally hermetical, such wines cannot "breathe' at all.

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