Luxury winemakers 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 worldwide. The wood is so precious — and so expensive — that the French government heavily regulates its sales through annual auctions of oak forest plots.
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 These massive barrels will eventually be filled
00:06 with thousands of liters of wine.
00:08 But it's not just so winemakers can age more at once.
00:13 Luxury wine producers making some of the most expensive wine
00:18 in the world say these specific barrels, called frutres,
00:22 impact the taste of their product,
00:25 which is why they're willing to pay
00:26 up to $50,000 for a single barrel.
00:30 It's not only the size that impacts the taste.
00:34 The real star is the wood, specifically French oak.
00:38 The French oak is the best of the world.
00:42 (laughs)
00:44 French oak is a heavily inspected and regulated resource
00:48 used only for the most precious projects,
00:51 like repairing Notre Dame Cathedral.
00:55 In fact, if the French government thinks a cooperage
00:57 didn't bid enough for the wood,
00:59 it reserves the right to block the sale.
01:01 So do these massive barrels really impact the taste of wine?
01:08 And why are frutres so expensive?
01:11 While both American oak and French oak
01:17 can be used to make a frutre,
01:19 French oak is considered far superior,
01:22 which explains why it's more than twice the cost.
01:25 For one, it has a finer grain,
01:29 with rings less than two millimeters apart.
01:32 The slower the tree grows, the tighter the grain.
01:35 France's limestone-based soil and cooler temperatures
01:40 contribute to this slow process.
01:42 This quality allows for a more gradual
01:45 and controlled release of the oak compounds,
01:48 or tannins, into the wine.
01:51 Tannins create the subtle bitter flavor
01:53 and texture you experience in a glass of dry wine,
01:57 or when you bite into the rind of a fruit.
01:59 Dominique Moreau of Vaudreuil-Francois
02:04 comes from a family of wine connoisseurs,
02:07 so he knows what wood makes a good wine.
02:11 (speaking in foreign language)
02:15 Today, he's inspecting French oak wood
02:26 from his supplier, Gaudela.
02:28 (speaking in foreign language)
02:33 (gentle music)
02:36 This wood has already been dried for about four years.
02:46 Once Dominique signs off, it will be transferred
02:49 and stored outside the cooperage for a few more weeks
02:52 before it's ready to be used.
02:53 Wilfried is the gatekeeper,
03:00 choosing which wood will be used for the base
03:02 and keeping the most attractive pieces
03:04 for the main body of the barrel.
03:06 (speaking in foreign language)
03:12 In the end, only 20% of any given French oak tree
03:23 will be deemed suitable to be part of a foudre.
03:26 The discarded pieces will be used elsewhere,
03:30 like fueling the fires for the toasting.
03:32 The boards Wilfried has chosen
03:35 are placed one at a time in this machine,
03:38 which cuts and angles the sides and edges
03:41 to various specifications based on the size of the barrel.
03:44 This allows the boards to form a tube
03:48 when they're arranged vertically.
03:50 They're held together with cables to maintain their shape,
03:55 while the entire barrel is steamed for several hours
03:58 under a tarp to soften it.
04:00 (speaking in foreign language)
04:04 After the heat treatment, the cable is removed
04:24 and the coopers take turns hammering on large metal hoops
04:27 to replace them and maintain the barrel shape.
04:30 They may also need to adjust the boards
04:35 to make sure they're properly aligned and smooth.
04:38 (speaking in foreign language)
04:43 The amount of rings depends on the size of the foudre.
04:49 (speaking in foreign language)
04:55 (machine whirring)
04:58 But why use such a large barrel to age wine?
05:09 First, it means the winemakers will need fewer barrels.
05:14 But most importantly, it means the wine
05:16 touches the surface area of the barrel less often,
05:19 so the flavor the barrel adds to the wine is more subtle.
05:24 These large foudres also minimize oxygen levels.
05:29 While some oxygen is necessary for aging,
05:31 too much can flatten the wine.
05:33 (speaking in foreign language)
05:39 (upbeat music)
05:41 Foudrerie François makes a number
06:06 of different-sized foudres,
06:08 from 1,000 to 50,000 liters.
06:11 It also makes egg or ovoid shapes,
06:16 which are designed to help circulate the dead yeast cells
06:19 and other sediment during fermentation.
06:21 Such large barrels need to be moved with forklifts
06:26 and accessed using ladders and scaffolding.
06:29 The next step is toasting,
06:35 in which kilns are lowered into the open barrels.
06:38 They're monitored closely
06:41 because the barrel could blister or blacken at this stage,
06:45 meaning all the work to build the massive foudre
06:47 could go to waste.
06:49 (speaking in foreign language)
06:54 (upbeat music)
06:56 Toasting brings out more of the tannic flavors,
07:15 and customers can specify the level.
07:18 (speaking in foreign language)
07:23 (upbeat music)
07:26 The bottom pieces are created
07:38 by attaching smaller boards with wooden dowels.
07:41 Strips of wood are also added in between them
07:44 to make sure it's an airtight, waterproof fit.
07:47 And a groove is cut along the outside edge
07:53 so that it will fit securely into the bottom
07:55 and act as a seal.
07:56 At this point, any accessories are added,
08:06 like the tasting tap or special thermometers.
08:10 Since Foudre Rue François customizes its foudres
08:13 for its clients,
08:14 each barrel is built to their specifications.
08:17 (speaking in foreign language)
08:23 (upbeat music)
08:26 Logos of the winery brands
08:45 are also chiseled into the wood.
08:47 The containers are finally packaged
08:51 and shipped to their final destination.
08:54 Foudre Rue François has customers all over the world.
08:59 (speaking in foreign language)
09:05 Typically, only high-end wineries use French oak barrels,
09:19 which are more expensive than American oak.
09:22 They start at about 8,000 euros for a 1,000-liter foudre.
09:28 A standard 225-liter French oak barrel
09:31 sells for about 900 euros,
09:34 and a similar one made of American oak
09:36 is about half the cost at 470 euros.
09:40 This ultimately increases the cost of the wine as well.
09:45 If an installation is outside of France,
09:48 the price goes up even higher
09:51 and could be as much as 45,000 euros.
09:54 While the oak flavor will start to fade over time,
09:58 the foudres can still be used to ferment for decades.
10:01 (speaking in foreign language)
10:06 Each barrel from Foudre Rue François
10:12 is also marked with a small plaque for transparency.
10:16 (speaking in foreign language)
10:20 Traceability is important
10:38 because quality oak trees are a limited resource.
10:41 They take over 120 years to mature,
10:45 so the person who planted the seed
10:47 won't even be allowed to see the foudre or taste the wine.
10:50 It's March in the Loire Valley of central France,
10:56 and a new batch of logs has just arrived
10:59 at the Gueux de la Sommeille.
11:00 The company specializes in processing
11:04 and supplying locally sourced oak
11:05 to some of the top cooperages in the country,
11:08 including Foudre Rue François.
11:12 (speaking in foreign language)
11:16 There's an initial quality check upon arrival,
11:24 one of many in the road to becoming a foudre.
11:27 (speaking in foreign language)
11:32 A worker will measure out the desired length
11:38 and make note of any initial knots
11:40 or imperfections in the wood,
11:42 which would cause a leak in the final barrel.
11:45 The logs are sorted and lifted onto a conveyor,
11:50 where a machine removes the bark.
11:52 Each log is then cut into a pile known as a boule,
12:03 using vertical cuts in the same direction as the fibers.
12:06 Then they're unstacked and reexamined.
12:11 The ideal pieces have very straight fibers.
12:14 Quality, tight-grain wood is a treasured resource
12:30 for cooperages, so the Office National des Forêts,
12:34 or ONF, holds auctions for plots of trees every fall.
12:38 In 2022, 44,000 cubic meters of wood
12:42 were sold to a variety of cooperages
12:44 for a record 15 million euros.
12:47 (speaking in foreign language)
12:52 The boules are placed outside to be air-dried
13:07 for up to four years before they're delivered to a buyer.
13:10 Drying reduces moisture, which can warp the wood,
13:20 and helps strengthen it for use in a foudre.
13:23 Since World War II, the French government
13:37 has been carefully managing their growth and distribution.
13:40 It maintains some plots of only the straightest trees
13:44 with the finest grains,
13:46 regularly clearing out any weak outliers.
13:49 The ONF also established a system called Mosaic Forest
13:54 to battle the climate crisis.
13:57 This involves planting a mixture of species
13:59 to nurture the growth of the more valuable oak trees.
14:03 These methods seem to be working for now.
14:06 France's forests have been growing
14:08 at a rate of 85,000 hectares per year, according to the ONF.
14:12 But the Ministry of Agriculture released a report in 2023
14:17 calling for billions of euros
14:19 to help combat extreme heat and drought,
14:22 which it says could eliminate 30% of tree species
14:25 in France by 2050.
14:27 It's something that takes a long time to grow
14:30 and is being rarified,
14:33 especially by the surface it's on,
14:35 and by climate change,
14:36 which means that many trees are dying today.
14:39 (Music)
14:43 (Music)
14:47 (Music)
14:50 (thudding)