Benefits of cork And it is used for many things, from the production of agglomerate for walls and floors to the manufacture of shoe insoles and even the lining of satellite capsules, but its main purpose is the sealing of bottles of alcoholic beverages -wines, spirits and cava- in the form of stoppers.

Auctions for wine corks sell in lots as small as 20 and as large as 500. The wine bottles usually sell for about 50 cents per bottle, but fancier bottles can fetch near $5.00 each (hint: Cobalt blue bottles!). Wine corks, however, generally sell for about 10 cents each.

Cork is composed of suberin, a hydrophobic substance. Because of its impermeable, buoyant, elastic, and fire retardant properties, it is used in a variety of products, the most common of which is wine stoppers.

Each cork stopper is made up of around 800 million airtight cells. Among them is a gaseous mixture which allows it to be compressed to around half its thickness, without losing any flexibility, and to be decompressed and return to its original shape. This is what is called an elastic memory.