Last month witnessed the transference of what might be the oldest white wine still in barrel from its old home to a new one. The wine in question, housed in the Hospices de Strasbourg of Alsace since its harvest in 1472, was discovered last April to have been leaking at a significant rate (estimated to be about 3 liters a year) from the barrel it had called home since 1718. The task of creating a new yet identical home for the wine was taken on by two of the world’s foremost coopers, Xavier Gouraud and Jean-Marie Blanchard, both of the famed cooperage Radoux. Radoux supplied the wood and the two men supplied the labor: 200 hours mating the staves, which wasn’t as easy as the typical barrels they encounter on their day job, as this barrel was 450 liters in capacity (double the size of a typical barrel), and had to be a replica of the previous Alsatian barrel with its unusual egg shape. When the barrel was completed and deemed to be sound, the 500-year-old wine, the grape identity of which has been lost to time, was delicately transferred to its new vessel. The wine has only been tasted three times since being committed to barrel, once in 1576 to mark the occasion of an alliance between Strasbourg and Zürich; the second in 1718 to commemorate the laying of the first stone for a hospital in the city and most recently in 1944 by Gen. Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque to celebrate the liberation of Strasbourg. Unfiltered suspects someone must have snuck a sip last month but, for now, no one is willing to taste and tell.
submitted by Drupain
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from Worlds Great Wines http://ift.tt/1zimKt0
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