New oak barrels from Louis XIV tree – decanter.com – the route to all good wine — You can be sure the wines that come out of these barrels won’t be cheap. I’m certain that even the used barrels will be worth serious money.
An oak tree planted during the reign of Louis XIV has been sold to a Bordeaux cooper for 37,700 Euros.
Bordeaux cooperage Tonnellerie Sylvain bought the magnificent 340-year-old oak at auction and orders are already flooding in for barrels from the aromatic wood.
The oak, Le Chene de Morat, is the last of an exceptional parcel of Troncais oak from central France, planted in 1669 during the reign of Louis XIV.
‘The majority were felled in 1984 but four remained and this is the last survivor,’ said Jean-Luc Sylvain, manager of the family owned company.
An estimated 60 barrels will be produced from the tree which measures 40m in height with a circumference of 4.6m. A tree roughly 200 years old provides staves for 10 barrels
And they say Americans have no regard for history.
I’m not a tree huger, but I do love history and I think that that’s terrible
Typical of the French, to them F**k the nature as long as “pretty” stuff comes out…
Reminds me of a story I saw on PBS about the ancient bristlecone pines in California. Some are over 4,000 years old. Well, some pinhead scientist was researching their age so he went out and cut down a huge one to count its rings only to discover he had just killed the oldest living thing on earth.
whoops
Yeah, that’s right… kill a thing that has lived through 14 generations of people just so some rich people can sniff a glass of liquid. Some things have meaning just because of their existence, and lack of love for their very prescence really shows a lack of soul. It’s like seeing a seal pup and thinking only of the value of the fur.
“Reminds me of a story I saw on PBS about the ancient bristlecone pines in California. Some are over 4,000 years old. Well, some pinhead scientist was researching their age so he went out and cut down a huge one to count its rings only to discover he had just killed the oldest living thing on earth.
Comment by Ed K — 11/23/2005 @ 6:12 pm ”
It takes a higher level of education to commit a new act of stupidity.
The Chene de Morat was being attacked by beetles, and would not have lasted much longer. This was a very old tree, but in a managed forest very unlike those in the US. The managed forests of France were started by a far-sighted minister of Louis XIV as a resource of wood for the French navy. I was lucky to attend the tree-cutting, and was amazed at the reverence with which it was treated. As both a winemaker and an environmentalist, I was sad to see an old being lost, but it had been planted to a purpose, and was glad to see its life celebrated and respected. The forests there are carefully managed and continuously replanted. It is a sound system.