Mercaptans

Offensive-smelling compounds that result from poor winemaking when hydrogen sulfide combines with components in the wine. The aromas can include putrid food, skunk, and burnt rubber.

How often can cork bark be harvested from cork oak trees?

A. Every year, just like grapes

B. Once every 50 years

C. Once every 3 years

D. Once every 9 years

Cork oak trees can be harvested for the first time for cork bark after about 25 years. Thereafter, the tree bark is harvested every 9 years. A cork tree will be “stripped,” on average, sixteen times in its 150 to 200 life. There is a saying in Portugal (where most of the world’s cork oak forests exist) that: Nature got it wrong–there should be a cork harvest every year, but women should have babies just once every nine years.

“In Europe then we thought of wine as something as healthy and normal as food and also as a great giver of happiness and well-being and delight. Drinking wine was not snobbism nor a cult; it was as natural as eating and to me, as necessary.”

–Ernest Hemingway(1899-1961),
A Moveable Feast

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