Except for the cellphone hitched to his belt, 79-year-old Jose Joaquin da Silva Perdigao has been harvesting cork in Portugal's forests in much the same way for more than half a century.

And anyone with experience of different dining environments, who enjoys uncorking a bottle, will find much changed in the flavor by the change from a cork to a screw-top. Yes, it's psychological.

For the Drinks Business article, Amorim’s chairmen, Antonio Amorim told Schmitt that 18 billion bottles of wine are produced annually, of which 11.5 billion are sealed with a cork.