See under Gröninger Fass.
The construction of this giant wine cask was commissioned by Duke Heinrich Julius of Brunswick-Lüneburg (1564-1613), the Protestant bishop of Halberstadt Abbey (Saxony-Anhalt). He was a patron of the arts, had magnificent buildings erected and tried to increase the prosperity of his country by opening up new mines and draining swampland. He is said to have introduced the potato to Germany in 1597. The occasion for the construction was the lost bet of a bishop from the Rhineland. The barrel was completed by the cooper Michael Werner from Landau in 1594. He had also carpentered the first Heidelberg bar rel (where an even larger barrel stands today). Such giant wine barrels were the result of a competition that broke out...
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Egon Mark
Diplom-Sommelier, Weinakademiker und Weinberater, Volders (Österreich)