Seguin Moreau

Remy Petit and I met today with colleagues at Seguin Moreau, one of the largest wine-barrel producers in France. Wine barrels are made of white oak, in particular of Quercus petraea, which is higher in whiskey lactone than Quercus robur (the other common French oak) and American white oak (Q. alba). The day was fascinating from the standpoint of the oaks themselves and the barrel making. The photos below show only some of the highlights of barrel-making. Any errors are my own, as this text has not been reviewed.

Andrei and Remy inspecting incoming wood.

Wood that comes to the factory stands outside for several years (about 1 year for every centimeter of thickness). The alternation between saturation and drying draws secondary compounds out to the surface of the board, where they are washed away by the rain. The thickers boards here are used for large fermenting vats (see below), while the thinner boards...




... are used for standard wine barrels. The foam visible in the water running off of the wood to the left is caused by the tannins.







To keep the wood at an appropriate moisture level for barrel construction, flats of wood are stored under a large, open-air roof. You can see in the topmost board on the middle stack here a little warp; this is fine, and is caused by the fact that the boards of Q. petraea are cut to follow the grain, to ensure water-tightness. This is not necessary in Q. alba, which has larger tyloses. As a consequence, only about 25% of the original log makes it to this stage in Q. petraea, whereas about 60% of the Q. alba log makes it (to my recollection; these numbers could be a bit off).

Once inside, the boards are shaped into staves, and the staves are lined up on a barrel-sized pattern. There is about 1mm of wiggle room in this process.

Batches of staves are then assembled into barrels, which are open at the bottom, pounded into alignment, and then moved off to the next stage...



... where they are toasted over an open flame. During toasting, the bottoms of the barrels are hugged into shape

Toasting

and hugging.

 The resultant barrel smells like warm bread inside. It's delicious.

The edges of the barrel are then beveled, and a rim is cut to accept the top.

The barrel tops are made of a variety of woods, including Robinia pseudo-acacia, depending on the wine variety. The wood is pressed together with reeds between the boards to ensure that the top is airtight. This is the only monocot I noticed in the factory.

















The tops are cut round and pounded into place, with a sort of bread dough (truly! flour and water) between the top and the barrel proper to ensure a tight seal.

 The barrel is sanded smooth...

... laser-printed with the Seguin Moreau logo...

 ... pressure tested twice to ensure air-tightness, and then packaged up for shipping.










The largest barrels are truly enormous. As I understand it, the barrels below are used for fermenting chambers.