Behavior of Natural Cork Stoppers when Modifying Standard Corking Parameters: Three Practical Cases
C. Prades López, M. Sánchez-González
Abstract. In the elaboration of wine many factors directly affect the quality and properties of the final product, among them the choice of bottle and stopper. Standard cork stoppers measure 24 mm in diameter. This dimension determines the thickness or minimum caliper of the cork on the tree, which should be approximately 29 mm for the manufacture of one-piece natural cork stoppers. In Spain, an average of 54,614 tons of cork were produced per year in the period 2006–2013. However, both the thickness and quality of the cork has decreased, thus affecting the percentage of cork that can be used to manufacture natural stoppers, as well as the quality of the stoppers produced. This declining trend could be stabilized or reversed when new cork plantations enter into production following the reforestation of agricultural land. This work aims to address a current need that has arisen in the sector: to increase the percentage of cork stoppers of sufficient caliper and quality for the manufacture of one-piece natural stoppers. In order to increase the quantity of cork suitable for manufacturing natural stoppers, it is necessary to modify the corking diameters by reducing the diameter of the stopper and the compression rate, while ensuring the impermeability of the cork to liquids and gases.
Keywords
Cork, Bottleneck Diameter, Stopper Diameter, Compression Rate, Compression Force, Relaxation Force, Diametrical Recovery
Published online 9/20/2019, 8 pages
Copyright © 2019 by the author(s)
Published under license by Materials Research Forum LLC., Millersville PA, USA
Citation: C. Prades López, M. Sánchez-González, Behavior of Natural Cork Stoppers when Modifying Standard Corking Parameters: Three Practical Cases, Materials Research Proceedings, Vol. 14, pp 20-27, 2019
DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.21741/9781644900413-4
The article was published as article 4 of the book Cork Science and its Applications II
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