Francisco Jiménez, 31, from Córdoba, handles the elements of nature at will. He uses water and fire to tame wood and metal. He does it in a dark room, completely covered in soot, where the hammer blows barely make it possible to hear the noise of a radio playing flamenco. After watering the old American oak barrels that once aged Marco de Jerez wines, this master cooper places them on fires that heat their interior. Smell and touch tell you the optimal time, about 15 minutes later, so that the heat allows the wet wood to bend without tearing and the metal rings are warm to fit the curves. Between sweats, finally, he animates the candle that for 20 seconds carbonizes with great flames the interior of the barrel, where some sherry aged for decades. This, together with its traditional process, makes it one of the most coveted by the whiskey industry and has earned the company where it works, Tonelería del Sur, to be chosen as the best cooper in the world at the awards whiskey icons 2023 -which are delivered this Thursday in London- within the rest of the world category, that is, without counting America, Scotland, Ireland and India.
With a lumberjack shirt and a neat beard, Rafael Cabello, 41 years old and born in Montilla (Córdoba), has a lot to do with this award. Also his father. “He didn’t want me to be a cooper, but he told what he did with such passion that he transmitted it to me,” recalls who started working at the age of 14 and until he was 30 he went through all the stages of making a barrel, including the hot batter, where it is given the final form using fire. In 2005, when the cooperage industry in his town was collapsing, he took over the reins of the company he founded with his father and became independent from another family company founded in 1974. They had four workers, a production of 500 units per year and a great desire to to grow.
With a scholarship from the Institute of Foreign Trade (ICEX), Cabello went to the Westland distillery in Seattle (United States) in 2010, where he learned to make whiskey. He came back with new ideas and completed his mastery of the two most important languages in the sector: that of the distiller and that of the master cooper. The path that he had traced years before gained momentum until it became a world reference. “We are not a large industry, but we make signature barrels because we make it easy for customers to participate in the process, totally artisan. Here we help them find exactly what they are looking for”, he explains. The company now has 37 employees and makes 11,000 barrels a year, a figure it expects to double by 2025, when they plan to open their new facility on the outskirts of town.
In the original headquarters there is still an intense daily activity and a mixture of aromas that moves between wine, sawdust and burned wood. It is a world with a specialized jargon: batiero, chazo, duela, jable, chamferte, bojo, mesh, repelo. The young Antonio Arcas, 23, is getting used to it. “I come from a family of carpenters and wood is in my blood. I love it here,” he says as he cuts the bottom pieces—the lid—of a barrel. In this factory they make barrels from four to 500 liters, although the standard is 250. Many are created from new wood, which they sell as is or age with sherry in their own facilities or in collaboration with 17 bodegas —from Montilla and other points in Andalusia such as Málaga or Sanlúcar de Barrameda— based on what their customers are looking for in their spirits.
The jewels in the crown are the reused barrels, which accumulate decades of solera and whose wood has been impregnated with wine for years. They buy them at wineries in the area —Montilla-Moriles has its own Denomination of Origin— or from Marco de Jerez. Then they disassemble, restore and reassemble after going through the fire. The industry goes out of its way for them. The aroma of Andalusian sherry is essential for high-class whiskeys, the so-called single malt. The Pedro Ximénez gives them a sweeter flavor, the oloroso adds power and the amontillado gives depth. The final roasting —which generates fascinating and fleeting flames from the sawdust— also adds color and flavor, with nuances of vanilla, coconut or coffee. And the legend about Jerez wines gives it the final touch of mysticism and marketing.
“We make signature barrels. Like a tailor-made suit”, highlights Elena Raya, 38 years old. Today she works in the offices as head of logistics, quality and human resources, among other functions, but for ten years she went through most of the phases of making a barrel. From the unloading of the wood to the notching or lifting, a process that involves placing each stave —that is, each piece of wood— in a circular way to shape the barrel, held by a metal ring. Also the final finish. “The key is to know the raw material well,” she points out next to an American oak plank several meters high. They bring the wood from Ohio, but they also work with Spanish, French, Danish or Swedish oak and chestnut from the Galician or Asturian north. They are already considering using cherry or acacia to serve the world whiskey gurus. “The fact that there are bottles worth thousands of euros and that they work with our barrels means that we are important to them,” underlines Rafael Cabello.
The Cordovan company sells its barrels to around twenty countries. Scotland, Ireland or the Scandinavian countries are good clients, such as China, Taiwan or India. They export a third of their production to the United States and it is the market they bet on to ensure their future. “There are new distilleries of young people who are doing different things and highly value quality. And there we fit in perfectly”, highlights the Cordovan businessman, who has paid attention to traceability, care for the environment and the circular economy. All the wood is reused in the process —from the one used to feed the fire in the batiero to the shavings, which are sold to the gastronomic market to flavor with sherrys— and there are barrels made with wood from sustainable farms that are aged with organic wines. His only concern, for now, is the future of a profession for which there is no formal training and which takes years to learn. For example, it takes five years of experience to know the keys to the work that is done in the batter, where just a little more heat can destroy a barrel. “We must fight to maintain the art of cooperage: this is not a mass production,” concludes Cabello, a master cooper who has put the Montilla industry on the world map.
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