Tonnellerie MARGO

Romania is the ninth largest country in the European Union
and has over 23,000 square miles of forest. The Carpathian Mountains
run through the heart of the country, dominating the landscape.
Just outside the village of Bellu in the Arad province of western Romania, Nicu Vulturar owns and operates Tonnellerie MARGO, an integrated stave mill and cooperage.

Nicu learned the art of coopering from his father Neculai Vulturar. Tonnellerie MARGO was established by Nicu and his wife Mariana ten years ago. The MARGO stave splitting mill is one of the largest in the region with 25 employees. Nicu personally travels into the forests and through the state-owned lots to select his oak. Longer aging regimes require the highest quality oak. Since all MARGO barrels are made of three-year aged oak, Nicu must grade every log carefully.

With the identical oak species as France, Eastern European forests have long been a source of wine barrel staves. Romania’s acceptance into the European Union (2007)
finally brought their high quality oak onto the world stage. Several
French-owned mills within Romania regularly send staves back to France.

Tonnellerie MARGO operates on old world traditions. Six coopers
build each barrel from start to finish, fire-bending them over tall
wire brazeros. Each barrel is slow-toasted using a suspended
basket of oak embers. The MARGO house toast takes roughly
an hour and fifteen minutes to achieve an almond hue. MARGO
barrels are best suited for elegant wines that will benefit from
fine grain oak structure and subtle toast influences.

Quality and responsibility go hand-in-hand. Nicu Vulturar’s
extensive, personally selected oak inventory allows him to choose
only the best staves for his barrels. The annual production of Tonnellerie MARGO
is less than 1,000 barrels.

If you seek fine-grain European oak barrels, properly aged, slow-toasted and hand-crafted by a family owned stave mill and cooperage with integrity, look no further than
Tonnellerie MARGO.