Bordeaux amphora (13/14 liters), kept at the Aquitaine museum.
Archives Alexandre Sioc’Han de Kersabiec
From Antiquity and the first times of the culture of famous biturica grape variety, the port of the Moon, which trades intensely with the Mediterranean via the Garonne, and Brittany via the Atlantic, already has its shipbuilders but also its coopers. All excel in woodworking. Burdigala and its land quickly established themselves as the second most important center of cooperage in Gaul, after that of the Rhône valley.
“Privilege of Bordeaux”
And above all, it is here that the famous Bordeaux barrel. Used almost universally today for aging wines, its origin is intimately linked to the “privilege of Bordeaux”. If its current dimensions and its capacity of 225 liters were stopped and registered in the law, on May 12, 1858, by the Chamber of commerce of Bordeaux, it appears for the first time in the legislation in 1597, at the request of the jurats.
At Chartrons and Saint-Michel, there will be up to more than 500 coopers
At the end of the sixteenthe century, the city and its wines opened up to Europe. The port is equipped with holds, or “debarcadous”, and vast cellars. In Chartrons, this new suburb which is developing to the north, and in Saint-Michel (where several streets, such as that of Fusterie or rue Carpenteyre, today recall the ancient presence of barrels and carpenters), there are up to to more than 500 coopers.
Handling wine barrels in November 1959, Quai des Chartrons in Bordeaux. South West Archives
Always anxious to protect this wine which made their fortune, the people of Bordeaux obtain a monopoly of form and capacity: the “Bordeaux barrel”. Without fighting too much: the cask also facilitates the control of the royal tax agents, the wines of Bordeaux enjoying, unlike the others, the exemption of certain circulation rights. The judgment of the Parliament thus defends “in any way people, inhabitants or benevolent” of Bazas, La Réole, Marmande, Bergerac, Sainte-Foy, Saint-Seurin-de-Mortagne, Saintonge, Agenais, Condomois and other places of Haut -Pays, to put their wines in barrels of Bordeaux gauge, under penalty of a fine of 10,000 ecus and the confiscation of the wine”.
The art of the cooper always fascinates. Here, June 24, 2016, at the Bordeaux Wine Festival. Archives Quentin Salinier
–
