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October 2015 WINES&VINES 57 BARRELS forest to secure stave-quality logs. "It's not economically feasible to buy timberland just to be able to get the logs to manufacture the product," he said. "The numbers just wouldn't make sense at all." Bill Luppold, an economist with the U.S. Forest Service North- ern Research Station in Newtown Square, Pa., has authored numer- ous studies about the American hardwood market. In an article for the journal bioresources.com, he and co-author Matthew S. Bum- gardner found that cooperage accounted for 4.5% of U.S. hard- wood exports in 2013. The United Kingdom and the distilleries of Scotland continue to be top mar- kets for U.S. barrel exports. Cooperage is the third-larg- est hardwood product imported to the U.S. market, making up 9% of all hardwood imports. France is the leading source of imported cooperage, with 86% of those imports fully assembled barrels. "Cooperage imports have steadily increased over the years, and France has remained the dominant source of this product," Luppold wrote. Matthew Meyer, winemaker and executive vice president of The Williamsburg Winery in Williamsburg, Va., uses barrels from a variety of coopers that pro- duce oak barrels from France, the United States and Hungary. He said he's yet to see the demand for American oak barrels drive up the cost of new barrels, but he has seen a huge increase in neutral, used barrels. "I used to be able to buy used barrels at next to noth- ing," he said. "Now those same barrels are over $100 and are not easy to find." Meyer said he tends to pur- chase more French oak, so he's less worried about American oak prices and happier about the drop in the value of the euro. He men- tioned he's also begun to work with Tonnellerie Bossuet, which provides "superb" barrels at com- petitive prices. "With that said, I would prob- ably buy more barrels from France given the euro situation, even if I didn't have a new friend in the barrel-making business." NADALIÉ USA 1401 Tubbs Lane Post Office Box 798 Calistoga, CA 94515 Tel. 707 942 9301 Fax. 707 942 5037 info@nadalie.com www.nadalie.com Nadalié France since 1902 Nadalié USA since 1980 NADALIÉ USA, it's also... FRENCH BARREL SALES SLIP, U.S. DEMAND STILL STRONG In June, the Fédération des Tonneliers de France reported that it enjoyed another stable year, thanks to growing sales in the United States. The group, which represents 51 coopers in France, reported its members sold 524,500 barrels worth 342 million euros (or $382 million). According to a statement released by the federation, total sales volume slipped 3% compared to the previous year because of less demand from winer- ies in the southern hemisphere and China. A normal harvest in France and a second good year of sales in the United States limited the overall decline. Exports accounted for 66% of total volume, or 236 mil- lion euro ($263 million) of total sales. Wineries in France, the United States, Australia, Italy and Spain account for 80% of the global barrel market for French oak barrels. The federation also noted that the sale of large-format barrels is on the upswing, growing 7% to 24 million euros ($27 million) last year. Just 17 of the group's members produce large-format barrels, but these coopers produced approximately 1,000 of them in 2014.