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It's probably something most of us never think about -- where do corks come from?

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And the simple answer is Portugal.

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Now, this is one of my favorite stories, an absolutely beautiful place and an invention that's maximized the cork harvest.

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Quercus suber, that's its Latin name,

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the species of western Mediterranean oak tree that has given us something very special for thousands and thousands of years, namely, cork.

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Now, scientists have been able to extract more from it, namely give us more cork for our bark.

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Do you like cork?

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I love cork. It's a fascinating material.

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Cork is impermeable, buoyant, elastic, fire-resistant.

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Professor Helena Pereira fell in love with it and this landscape as a child.

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Her research is now helping sustain its future.

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Cork can only be harvested from mature trees every nine years.

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You have to be deft, surgical with an ax.

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The trunk itself shouldn't be touched, only the bark.

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Two men strip this tree in just ten minutes. The yield, a pile of cork worth about $100.

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There is a little bit of snobbery in the cork industry.

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Corks for fine wine are literally punched from the raw materials.

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They're an integral part of how a good wine ages.

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Reconstituted corks from granules are rather less pleasing on [to] the eye, and they're only used for lesser wines.

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Professor Pereira and her colleagues discovered a way of getting more cork from the granules left over from the raw bark.

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At a cellular level, cork is a honeycomb of hexagonal prisms, millions of them, all a little warped and bendy.

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By adding a little moisture and some intense heat, they were able to stretch the cells.

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We expanded the cells so they became straight, and they increased in volume, of course.

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And the increase is quite heavy. The best case is we had over 80 percent increase.

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Equally surprising was the way they did it in the lab by moistening the granules in a special container and then simply popping them into the microwave.

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A few minutes later, and hey presto, bigger cork granules.

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On the left, the granules before. And on the right, after they were microwaved.

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Did you have to buy a domestic microwave?

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In fact, yes. In fact, yes. It was. We started with a domestic microwave, yes.

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This expanded granular cork has more and more applications, most obviously for insulation.

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In the factory, they rain down in their millions.

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The leading Portuguese producer, Amorim, is reasserting its market share against competition from plastic and metal bottle tops.

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Turnover last year was over $600 million.

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Outside in the sun, the factory's stockyard is full of cork planks.

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Making the most of the harvest has helped reinvigorate an ancient industry.

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Science is helping us preserve this landscape -- the same beauty, the same sounds -- outside and in.