By Rafe Calder
The bark comes off the tree. The tree lives. Everything about the cork trade in northern Sardinia follows from that.
Where it is
Calangianus is in the heart of Gallura, in north-eastern Sardinia, according to Italia.it, the national tourism board. Wikipedia calls it “Cork’s Capital” and says it is surrounded by extensive cork oak forests. Italia.it says that in the twentieth century it became one of Italy’s most industrialised centres.
How the bark is taken
L’Italo-Americano, a magazine, says a cork oak must reach at least 25 years before its first harvest. That first harvest is done by hand with an axe called a piola, by a skilled worker called a scorzino, and yields coarse cork, sugherone or maschio. The second harvest, giving the finer femminile cork, comes at least nine years later. Trees can be harvested 15 to 18 times, every nine to ten years, it says, in the warmer summer months.
The encyclopaedia entry on cork (Wikipedia) agrees with the order of events and gives more figures: trees about 25 to 30 years old and about 60 centimetres in circumference at the first harvest, later harvests usually every nine years though it can take up to thirteen for the bark to reach an acceptable size, and a stripping season from early May to late August.
Italy’s tourism board gives the word for the work, decortica, the extraction of bark from the cork oak.
Side by side: the stripping season, and the count
- L’Italo-Americano says harvesting takes place in the warmer summer months and trees can be harvested 15 to 18 times.
- Wikipedia says the season runs from early May to late August.
- Italy Planner, a travel guide that does not cite sources for most figures, says roughly June to August and 15 to 20 times in a lifetime.
We do not reconcile them. All three agree that the work is manual, seasonal and repeated at long intervals.
From sheet to stopper
According to L’Italo-Americano, the extracted sheets are dried outdoors for at least twelve months, then boiled to remove impurities and tannins, improve flexibility and flatten the planks. About 60 per cent of cork production goes to wine stoppers, it says, and Wikipedia gives the same share for stoppers. Italia.it lists products from Calangianus: bottle stoppers, shoes, bags, furnishing panels, thermal insulators, fashion accessories, design objects and baseballs.
Side by side: how much of Italy’s cork is Sardinian
- L’Italo-Americano says Italy produces about 15,000 tonnes of cork a year and about 12,000 tonnes come from Sardinian trees, roughly 80 per cent.
- Italy Planner says Sardinia accounts for 65 to 70 per cent of Italian output, on 10,000 to 12,000 tonnes a year.
- Wikipedia’s cork entry gives Italy 3.1 per cent of world production and Portugal 49.6 per cent.
The first two disagree about the Italian total. The third is about the world. Our reading: Sardinia is the main Italian source on any of these counts, but the exact share is not settled by what we found.
A town built around one material
Wikipedia’s account is that entrepreneurs moved to the town in the early nineteenth century and turned its cork forests into a major source of income, until almost the entire local population worked in the trade. It says the town had about 300 industrial firms in the second half of the twentieth century and 677 in 2012, and that in 1987 it was recognised as one of Italy’s hundred most industrialised municipalities. It also names Palazzo Corda, built in the nineteenth century by the town’s first cork contractor.
Italia.it says cork processing in Sardinia officially began in 1851, and that a Calangianus stopper shown at the International Exhibition in Milan established the town as Italy’s cork capital. The page does not give the year of that exhibition, so we give none.
The museum and the fair
The Cork Museum is housed in a former Capuchin convent, says Italia.it, with vintage machinery, historical films, photographs and tools such as lathes. It also displays a nativity scene made entirely of cork. Wikipedia places the museum in the convent beside the Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, an eighteenth-century church linked to the Capuchin friars.
The dates for the fair differ. Italia.it says the annual Cork Fair was established in 1978. Wikipedia says the town held its first cork exhibition in 1977. They may be describing different events. The pages do not say.
Dates in order
- 1851: cork processing officially begins in Sardinia, according to Italia.it.
- Early nineteenth century: entrepreneurs arrive, according to Wikipedia.
- 1977: first cork exhibition, according to Wikipedia.
- 1978: Cork Fair established, according to Italia.it.
- 1987: ranked among Italy’s hundred most industrialised municipalities, according to Wikipedia.
- 2012: 677 firms, according to Wikipedia.
Questions a buyer would ask
Is cork harvest harmful to the tree? Italia.it describes the supply chain as a sustainable model based on a renewable resource, and L’Italo-Americano says skilled hands and the correct tools strip the bark without harming the tree. Both are descriptions, not independent audits. Is all cork the same? No: the sources separate first-harvest coarse cork from later, finer cork. Does a nativity scene in cork exist? The museum page says so.
What kind of sources these are
Italia.it (national tourism board), Wikipedia (open encyclopaedia, two articles), L’Italo-Americano (magazine) and Italy Planner (travel guide, mostly unsourced figures). No trade body or museum site was read.
What we left out
Prices, tonnage per firm, trade rules, opening hours and fair dates. Cork’s role in wine is mentioned only as a share of use.
Quick answers
How often is cork oak bark stripped? Every nine to ten years after the first harvest, says L’Italo-Americano; Wikipedia says usually nine, and up to thirteen.
What is the first cork harvest called? Sugherone, also called maschio, according to L’Italo-Americano; the finer later cork is femminile.
Where is the cork museum? In a former Capuchin convent at Calangianus, according to Italia.it.
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Roam first. Shop later.