The art of barrel building is an ancient craft that goes back to Roman times, and it hasn't changed very much over all those centuries. If you visit a modern-day cooperage, or barrel-building company, with its blazing fires and deafening pounding, you might think you've entered a time machine and gone back a few hundred years. They use a few machines now that that didn't exist then, but otherwise the barrels are still very much hand-crafted. And, to this day, they make these water-tight vessels without using any glue or nails. This is why the title "Master Cooper" is a highly respected one.

In Europe there are formal training programs, much like trade-schools, for aspiring coopers. So far, we have no such training programs in the U.S. and so it's on-the-job training. Consequently, most American cooperages are managed by European-trained Master Coopers.

White oak is far and away the most commonly used wood for wine barrels. There are two species in France, Quercus robur and Quercus sessilus, that are different from those found in the US, which is dominated by Quercus Alba. Eastern European oak, which is the same species as the French, is being used more frequently now too.

more