Dürkheim barrel

In 1934, master cooper Fritz Keller built the now world-famous "Dürkheim Giant Barrel" on the sausage market site in Bad Dürkheim on the German Wine Route in the Palatinate. Almost 200 fir trees, each 40 metres high, were felled in the Black Forest for the gigantic barrel construction. One fir tree was needed to make each of the 178 barrel staves, each 15 metres long and 15 centimetres thick. Transporting these extra-long fir trunks from the Black Forest to the Palatinate was only possible at night and with a special permit.

Fritz Keller and his helpers processed more than 200 cubic metres of wood to create the giant barrel with a diameter of 13.5 metres and a capacity of 1.7 million litres or 1,700 cubic metres. Today it stands next to the B37 Bad Dürkheim - Kaiserslautern motorway. However, this largest barrel in the world was never filled with wine, nor was it intended to be, but this in no way diminishes the enormous feat of the cooper.

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Dürkheim barrel

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