Why These Giant Oak Barrels Are The Key To Making Some Of The World’s Most Expensive Wine

Luxury-wine makers, producing some of the most expensive wine in the world, will pay up to $50,000 for a single barrel to age their wine. But not just any barrel: a foudre. A foudre is a massive wooden vat that impacts and preserves the overall taste of the wine. Making a foudre starts with French oak, a tightly grained wood that adds unique flavoring to the wine. Cooperages like Foudrerie François pay close attention to the quality of the wood they source to make the foudres they sell and ship all over the world. The wood is so precious — and so expensive — that the French government heavily regulates its sales through annual auctions of oak forest plots.

Editor’s Note: At 7:42, the video incorrectly states that the material placed in between the planks of oak are strips of wood. The material is actually rush, a type of reed.

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these massive barrels will eventually be
filled with thousands of liters of
wine but it’s not just so wine makers
can age more at
once luxury wine producers making some
of the most expensive wine in the world
say these specific barrels called futas
impact the taste of their product which
is why they’re willing to pay up to
$50,000 for a single barrel
it’s not only the size that impacts The
Taste the real star is the wood
specifically French
Oak the French Oak in the best of the
world French Oak is a heavily inspected
and regulated resource used only for the
most precious projects like repairing
notredam
cathedral in fact if the French
government thinks a coup rdge didn’t bid
enough for the wood it Reserves the
right to block the
sail so do these massive barrels really
impact the taste of wine and why are
foodlas so
expensive well both American Oak and
French Oak can be used to make aut
French Oak is considered far superior
which explains why it’s more than twice
the
cost for one it has a finer grain with
rings less less than 2 mm apart the
slower the tree grows the tighter the
grain Fran’s Limestone based soil and
cooler temperatures contribute to this
slow
process this quality allows for a more
gradual and controlled release of the
oak compounds or tannins into the
wine tannins create the subtle bitter
flavor and texture you experience in a
glass of dry wine or when you bite into
the Rind of a fruit
Dominique moo of
f comes from a family of wine
connoisseurs so he knows what would
makes a good
wine today he’s inspecting French oak
wood from his supplier God DEA The Rock
this wood has already been dried for
about four years once Dominique signs
off it will be transferred and stored
outside the coup bridge for a few more
weeks before it’s ready to be
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used Wilfried is the GateKeeper choosing
which wood will be used for the base and
keeping the most attractive pieces for
the main body of the
Barrel in the end only 20% of Any Given
French oak tree will be deemed suitable
to be part of a
futra the discarded pieces will be used
elsewhere like fueling the fires for the
toting the boards Wille has chosen are
placed one at a time in this machine
which cuts and angles the sides and
edges to various specifications based on
the size of the
barrel this allows the boards to form a
tube when they’re arranged
vertically they’re held together with
cables to maintain their shape while the
entire Barrel is steamed for several
hours under a tarp to soften it
after the heat treatment the cable is
removed and the Coopers take turns
hammering on large metal Hoops to
replace them and maintain the Barrel
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shape they may also need to adjust the
boards to make sure they’re properly
aligned and
smooth the amount of rings depends on
the size of theut
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but why use such a large barrel to age
wine first it means the wine makers will
need fewer barrels but most importantly
it means the wine touches the surface
area of the barrel less often so the
flavor the barrel adds to the wine is
more
subtle these large futas also minimize
oxygen levels while some o is necessary
for aging too much can flatten the wine
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makes a number of different sized
foodless from 1,000 to 50,000
L it also makes egg or ooid shapes which
are designed to help circulate the dead
yeast cells and other sediment during
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fermentation such large barrels need to
be moved with forklifts and accessed
using ladders and Scaffolding
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the next step is toasting in which kils
are lowered into the open
barrels they’re monitored closely
because the barrel could blister or
blacken at this stage meaning all the
work to build the massive F could go to
waste
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toasting brings out more of botanic
flavors and customers can specify the
level
the bottom pieces are created by
attaching smaller boards with wooden
dowels strips of wood are also added in
between them to make sure it’s an
airtight waterproof
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fit and a Groove is cut along the
outside edge so that it will fit
securely into the bottom and act as a
seal
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at this point any accessories are added
like the tasting tap or special
thermometers since fut fris customizes
its futas for its clients each Barrel is
built to their specifications
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logos of the winery brands are also
chiseled into the
wood the containers are finally packaged
and shipped to their final
destination has customers all over the
world
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typically only high-end wineries use
French Oak barrels which are more
expensive than American
Oak they start at about €8,000 for a
1,000 l futra a standard 225 L French
Oak Barrel sells for about
€900 and a similar one made of American
Oak is about half the cost at
$470 this ultimately increases the cost
of the wine as well if an installation
is outside of France the price goes up
even higher and could be as much as
€45,000 while the oak flavor will start
to fade over time the foodlas can still
be used to ferment for
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decades each Barrel from F FR is also
marked with a small plaque for
transparency
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traceability is important because
quality oak trees are a limited
resource they take over 120 years to
mature so the person who planted the
seed won’t even be alive to see the
futra or taste the
wine it’s March in the Lu Valley of
central France and a new batch of logs
has just arrived at the G
Sawmill the company specializes in
processing and supplying locally sourced
Oak to some of the top cooperages in the
country
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including there’s an initial quality
check upon arrival one of many in the
road to becoming a f
a worker will measure out the desired
length and make note of any initial
knots or imperfections in the wood which
would cause a leak in the final
Barrel the logs are sorted and lifted
onto a conveyor where a machine removes
the bark
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each log is then cut into a pile known
as a Bo using vertical Cuts in the same
direction as the
fibers then they’re unstacked and
re-examined the ideal pieces have very
straight
fibers quality tight grain wood is a
treasured resource for cdes so the
office National de ORF holds auctions
for plots of trees every fall in 2022
44,000 cubic M of wood were sold to a
variety of cages for a record 15 million
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the Bulls are placed outside to be air
dried for up to four years before
they’re delivered to a
buyer drying reduces moisture which can
warp the wood and helps strengthen it
for use in a food
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since World War II the French government
has been carefully managing their growth
and
distribution it maintains some plots of
only the straightest trees with the
finest grains regularly clearing out any
weak
outliers the onf also established a
system called Mosaic Forest to battle
the climate crisis this involves
planting a mixture of spe species to
nurture the growth of the more valuable
oak trees these methods seem to be
working for now France’s forests have
been growing at a rate of 85,000
hectares per year according to the
onf but the Ministry of Agriculture
released a report in 2023 calling for
billions of Euros to help combat extreme
heat and drought which it says could
eliminate 30% of tree species in France
by
2050 for
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