Rovisco Garcia family cork farm
Wow!!
Day 5: April 29
On the way to our next overnight destination, Óbidos, we stopped for a breath of country-fresh air. Portugal has 34% of the world's cork oak forest area and produces 50% of the world's cork. Today we were guests of a four-generation family who have a cork farm in the Alentejo region in the south of Portugal. Their ancestors have lived in this region since the 17th Century. We loved our tour of their cork oak forest, bouncing along in an open-air safari-like vehicle, hopping out to hike on the paths amid the gnarly trees, learning all kinds of fascinating details about how cork is harvested. (If you're the type who likes the details, see the footnote box below.**)
The matriarch of the estate is 97-year-old Maria Rovisco Garcia. When we were on our way to the farm, Claúdia told us that Maria lost her land in 1974 to communists who emerged from underground after the Carnation Revolution overthrew the dictatorial ruler. Who was actually ruling Portugal in the first couple of years after the Carnation Revolution wasn't always clear, but there were huge demonstrations that brought about leftist policies. Many private landowners, especially farmers with large estates in the Alentejo region, had their lands confiscated and transformed into collective farms. At lunch later today Maria's great-grandson would share with me that his great-grandmother had a gun held to her head and was told she had 48 hours to leave her property. Years later there was an effort to return seized lands to the rightful owners but it wasn't very successful because in many cases, if not most, no paperwork existed to prove ownership. Maria, however, was lucky. In 1989, after she and her family returned from refuge in Brazil, she got her land back.
Maria raised two obviously smart, ambitious and hard-working children, her sons Francisco and António de Almeida Garrett. Twenty-four years ago she turned management of the property over to them. Mainly a cork oak farm up to that point, Maria's sons expanded and diversified the farm, buying beef cattle and planting hundreds of acres of vineyards, olive groves, and umbrella pine trees. Revenue from this large and beautiful estate now comes not just from sales of cork but also from sales of the wine they make (red, white and rosé), sales of the extra virgin olive oil made exclusively from their olives, sales of pine nuts from the cones of their umbrella pine trees, and sales of beef cattle. They also grow sunflowers, sold for the oil. A little money comes in from hunters who are permitted onto the land to shoot deer and wild boar, necessary wildlife management to prevent harm to the soil and trees.
Today the baton is being passed again. While Maria's two sons still have administrative roles, her three grandchildren are handling the day-to-day operations of the estate. We had the privilege of spending our day with two of them, siblings Gonçalo and Sofia. And the next generation waits in the wings. Maria has a number of great-grandchildren, the oldest of whom, Gonçalo's 19-year-old son Francisco, was also a host for our visit.
After Gonçalo finished our tour of the cork oak forest, he and Sofia and Francisco (who prefers the nickname Garrett) joined us for lunch, served in a beautiful guest building near the property's manor house. Everything was so delicious! I know I've never had a more homemade meal. We were drinking the Rovisco Garcia wine, with all the varieties offered so that we could try whichever ones suited our fancy. The olive oil for our bread was the family's olive oil. Monkfish soup was our starter course and a flaky-crust chicken pie was our main course, both made from treasured old family recipes. The farm's garden provided the produce for our salad. The chocolate brownie served for dessert was accompanied by homemade strawberry ice cream.
Food connects people. As we enjoyed this feast together, we felt a connection to the family members who had welcomed us onto their property, showed us how they earn their livelihood, provided this wonderful meal for us, and were now giving us a further glimpse into their lives by sharing more of their history and stories as we sat around the tables with them. We could feel their deep passion for their land, their pride in their sustainable agriculture techniques, and their appreciation for each other and for all that they have. Our time at the Rovisco Garcia estate was one of the "Wow!" experiences of our tour.
After lunch many of us popped into the wine shop in the office building next door to the guest house. The Rovisco Garcia wine was so good, we needed to take some along to be enjoyed later!
**Here's what we learned
There was too much interesting information presented during our tour to not share some of it! Maybe your favorite wines come with a screw cap and the production of cork is not of much concern to you, but if you're interested, read on!
The cork is, of course, the bark of the trees. To remove it, the cork farmer encircles the tree with two cuts, at the top and bottom of the trunk, then makes a vertical cut between those two horizontal cuts. The same can be done on the straight sections of the largest branches. All that bark then easily gives away from the tree. You don't want to forcefully pull it away, as that will harm the tree. The bark is not harvested during a drought because the tree will shut down a bit to conserve moisture and will hold fast to its bark. After the harvest, the trees look a bit odd: a nice smooth trunk that stops abruptly at a clean cut, a thick area of bark above, topped with branches that are twisty, gnarled, and covered in bark.
If I am a cork farmer in my next life, I hope that I come back with a healthy dose of patience because this livelihood is not a get rich quick scheme. A cork tree must grow for 25 years before any cork is removed. Thereafter, the cork is harvested just once in each nine year period. A farmer divides his cork oak forest into nine sections so that some cork can be harvested each year. The first time a tree is harvested, when it is 25 years old, it yields cork of poor quality, not very marketable. The same holds true for the second batch nine years later! Finally when the tree is 43 years old, it first produces good quality cork. Today, the cork from one tree nets the farmer about 150 Euro.
The tree will produce marketable cork for about 150 more years. Given those 9 year gaps, that's 17 total harvests. Then the tree must be retired. It is not cut down, as it provides the shade that the new seedling trees need, but it is no longer earning its keep.
The best quality cork is used for wine bottle stoppers. Nothing is wasted though. After bottle stoppers are punched out of a piece of cork that is bottle-stopper height in thickness, the remains of that piece are shredded, with that material valuable in the construction industry. And cork is used in other industries: e.g., clothing, health, even aerospace.
Walking through the Rovisco Garcia forest, you see large numbers painted in white on some of the tree trunks. This is the system of keeping track of the harvest year. A section with a 6 marked on several of the trees designates a 2016 harvest of the trees in that section. Visible numbers are required by government regulation. A farmer's property can be inspected, and there are penalties imposed when a farmer is caught harvesting his cork before the nine-year interval is up.
Longer intervals, however, are okay. Cork is priced and sold by weight. After it is removed, it starts to lose moisture and it becomes lighter. Therefore, a cork farmer wants to have his buyers lined up before he removes the cork. He's got most of the leverage in this situation. The buyer knows that the cork doesn't have to come off of the tree and if the farmer doesn't get the price he wants, he can simply leave it on the tree for another year.