Day 5 - Cork Processing, Jamon, Extremadura Wine
This morning we toured a cork bark processing plant in San Vicente de Alcantara - a small town about 10 kilometers from the border with Portugal. The freshly cut cork bark is transported from the forests to a processing plant where it is stacked and aged for six months to a year.
It is then placed on small pallets sorted by similar size and quality.
It is then steamed/boiled and pressed to flatten.
It is sorted, trimmed and restacked based on its quality which determines it potential usage. Lesser quality cork is ground and can be used for composite cork stoppers or cork boards. Better quality cork can be used for flooring, fishing pole handles, etc., and higher quality is for cork stoppers. At every step along the way, there are numerous quality checks, both manual and automated.
We next visied a local cork stopper manufacturer to see how wine corks are made. The cork received from the processing plant is boiled/steamed again and cut into strips. The strips are punched by one machine and a laser is used to determine the internal quality of the cork. For example, if the cork has fissures it is rejected. The corks then go through a machine to ensure that they are the proper diameter and smoothness and another machine to ensure proper length. They are then hand sorted, boiled/steamed again and put through a silicon wash to make the cork easier to insert into a bottle. The last step before packaging is to stamp them with winery logos, dates, etc. They are then packaged in bags of 10,000 for shipping to a winery. A good tree can produce approximately 25,000 corks of varying quality.
The factory we visited today made low to mid-range quality corks that are sold for about 10 to 12 cents a piece. High quality corks usually sell for 25 cents per cork for wine and up to $1.25 or $1.50 for champagne corks.
We left the cork business behind and toured an Iberian Jamon facility. One of the food specialties in Spain is Iberian Jamon which comes from the Iberian pig, a very large gray/black pig.
Pig hind quarters are received fresh from the butcher, laid on the floor and buried in salt for 10 days in a cold storage unit at 3 degrees Celsius and 90% humidity.
When they are removed from the salt they are flat and must be plumped back into their original shape for easier carving. They are then washed by hand and hung for 90 days to dry, moved to another cold storage unit (19° Celsius) and cured for 4 years. It takes that long to cure the ham all the way to the bone. They are sold for approximately €300 or $340.
When they are removed from the salt they are flat and must be plumped back into their original shape for easier carving. They are then washed by hand and hung for 90 days to dry, moved to another cold storage unit (19° Celsius) and cured for 4 years. It takes that long to cure the ham all the way to the bone. They are sold for approximately €300 or $340.
A cheaper alternative is to purchase the much smaller front leg of the pig which is called a paletilla. It is cured using the same process but only needs to be cured for two years. The paletilla costs much less - approximately €50 or $60 because it is bonier and smaller in size, and the processing time is shorter.
Prior to selling and wrapping the the ham it is brushed with oil from the Jamon and burnished to kill bacteria.
Miguel purchased a paletilla and we proceeded to a beautiful lakeside to have an outdoor picnic consisting of Iberian Paletilla (Jamon), gazpacho, Spanish Tortilla and other traditional local dishes. Our driver brought the equipment necessary to carve the paletilla. There are contests in Spain to determine the best carvers of Jamon (speed, thinness of the slices. etc.)
We arrived back at the hotel around midnight to be greeted by one of the large dogs who lives there.
Tomorrow we are off to Merida and Andalusia.
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