CORK!

On the way home from our devotional in Gaia we stopped by a cork factory ..."Cork Your Life"  We have been fascinated by cork trees and the process they go through to get cork products.  Cork is something we have never given much thought, until we came here and were surrounded by groves of cork trees all over the country. 

After the bark is stripped from the cork tree, it is stacked waiting for processing

This is a typical grove of cork trees seen all over the north and south of Portugal

Who knew that making cork stoppers was such a scientific process?  The Port wine that is produced in Portugal is very serious business and making the corks that are put into those bottles is also taken very seriously!!  There is constant and rigorous testing going on to assure a great cork?!?   

For some reason not known to me, these workers are responsible to test a random sample of corks by smelling them?!?  I am not sure if they smell good or bad but I know that it could be worse.... they could work in a bacalhou factory !!!  (that dried fish really STINKS)

The color of a newly stripped cork tree is actually very pretty.  The year is painted on the 'naked' trunk to keep track of when the next harvest is due.