When you opened a bottle of wine this Christmas, did you take a moment to look at the cork? Was it plastic? Or was it made from real cork and helping the survival of one of the richest wildlife habitats and sustainable forests of Europe?

The Mediterranean cork oak forests of Andalucía, for example the Los Alcornocales (which means Cork Oaks) Natural Park in Cadiz, are Europe's largest supplier of cork and one of the most important in the world.

The plastic cork threat from the New World vintners will mean certain doom for these huge ancient forests and for the families and villages that have lived from them for hundreds of years.

Cork production forms the economic backbone of these areas and a large percentage of employment comes either from directly producing the cork or as an off shoot from it. The Cork Oak tree is harvested every 10 years when the bark is harmlessly stripped by a skilled professional. The lower quality bark is used for wall tiles, vehicle engine gaskets and sports equipment, whereas the best bark goes on to produce wine bottle corks.

Very little has changed in the practise of cork oak farming and workers still use traditional methods without chemicals and fertilizers. The trees are pruned in such as way as to make them grow out instead of up, providing essential shade in the baking hot summers. Pruned branches are left on the ground for animals to graze, whilst larger ones are sold to make charcoal. Deer and Wild Boar are often introduced into the forests for hunting and the prized Black Iberian Pig (a descendent of the Wild Boar) is raised and feeds on the fallen acorns, and produces one of Andalucia's most expensive cured hams, selling all over the world at astronomical prices.

The knock on effect of these thriving forests are felt throughout the community. Hotels and restaurants have some of the most enticing menus in the whole of Andalucia, using fresh ingredients produced locally from forest products; Iberian Pork, Wild Boar Steaks, wild mushrooms, lavender scented honey, figs, cheese and cured hams.....all inevitably eaten with a cork handled knife and fork, with your plate on a cork place mat.

Do you need another reason to pop a real cork?........Well here's one.....If the demand for real cork reduces then the cork producers will go out of business and the remaining Mediterranean forests will probably be replaced by sterile stands of Eucalyptus trees. Non-indigenous species such as Eucalyptus are a great danger to the environment of Andalucia as they suck up all the water and nutrients out of the soil, leaving nothing for anything else and accelerating the problem of desertification in southern Spain. They also lack the natural fire-proof quality of the Mediterranean oaks and burn like tinder-boxes during the inevitable summer forest fires that are becoming an increasing problem in Andalucia.

So why the introduction of plastic?.....well basically it is due to the odd bottle of wine that you open which has that musty smell and is usually described as "corked". This is due to TCA, which is produced when the natural moulds inside the pores of the cork react with the bleach that is used for sterilization. Wine drinkers and suppliers used to simply accept that a few bottles would be lost due to the use of a natural product, but new vintners are becoming less tolerant and want to minimise this waste by replacing the cork with a plastic or even a metal screw top.

Prince Charles is quoted as saying "something as apparently simple as the decision by some winemakers to use plastic stoppers instead of traditional cork can have far reaching impact. Quite why anyone should want to encounter a nasty plastic plug in a bottle of wine is beyond me".....We in Andalucia agree!

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