In the heart of the so-called “Wine Route”, which runs through the main wine-growing centers of La Rioja, is the city of Haro. There, Bodegas Muga, with a famous experience in traditional winemaking, continues to pack its wines in large wooden vats. In these tubs, made by hand, the wine rests for the precise years and reaches that characteristic flavor that good tasters know. The construction of these large containers is carried out by the cubers, and the raw material is American or French oak wood. Previously, the planks have been subjected to a natural drying of 3 to 5 years, at least, in the open, withstanding the sun, the rain and all the climatic inconveniences. The first task that the cubers undertake to build a tub is to calculate the measurements and select the planks. Taking into account that the diameter of the tub to be manufactured must be 3 meters 10 centimeters, Jesús has calculated that he will need between 60 and 62 boards. One by one he marks them longitudinally using a rope impregnated in "blue" which, when released from its tension, leaves a straight line marked. The boards are cut on the bandsaw following the marked lines. Hand tools that were used to grind and prepare wood, such as the hand saw, grapple or planer, have been cornered and replaced by modern electric machines. Despite this economy of work, this change does not harm the final result that continues to maintain that totally handmade invoice. The electric planer saves a lot of time for cutters when edging the boards that will form the tub box. This task consists of eliminating roughness taking advantage of the largest possible size of the wood. "Making the face" consists of slightly curving one of the surfaces of the boards so that, when they are all joined, the outside of the tub takes a circular shape. At the same time that the cubers lower the face of the board with the electric planer, with the template they check that the curvature is correct throughout its length. When the boards of the tub box have both sides covered, one flat and the other curved, it is time to edge. This task consists of giving a slight inclination to the sides of the boards so that, when adjusting to each other, the whole assembly adopts a cylindrical shape. On this occasion, it is also the template that guarantees the correct angle . From this moment on, the cuberos have already prepared the staves of the tub. In total, almost ten meters of staves will be needed, which is the measurement of the circumference resulting from multiplying the diameter by 3.14. The cubers are stacking the staves by layers of approximately one meter until they reach the last stave in which the final measure is indicated. The "gifts" are the grooves that the staves must have near their ends to insert and adjust the base and lid in them. At the fixed distance, Jesus marks the width of the “gift” with his bramble and nails a guide board to lower it with the special milling machine. Again technology allows progress in this work. To achieve the curvature of the cylindrical shape of the tub, the final revision of the "gift" must be done with a hammer and chisel. “The gift, which is the slot where the bottom will be embedded. This is the top one, there the bottom one will go. And the head that is the short part of the plank above the gift. It has a slight curvature. And then we check it with the chantilly which is the diameter of the bottom that we are going to place. " Jesus checks his work with the "chantilly" which is a wooden template of the same thickness and curvature as the lid. With the sandpaper he gives the final review of the "gift". The top head must be lowered slightly with the planer so that when the lid is placed it is not forced and broken. When the tub is assembled, the union of the staves to each other will be ensured by small wooden dowels. To mark his location, Ramiro first uses a ruler with a point and then the bramil. The crossing of the two marks indicates the point where you need to drill the hole. In this way, the assembly of some staves with others will be perfect. The application of tallow on the edges of the staves is a traditional technique that serves to cover the repels of the wood and considerably reinforces the joint, guaranteeing the watertightness of the container. Each board has a peg on one of its edges and a hole on the opposite. At the end of the hole you have to make a small countersink that facilitates the entry of the pin from the adjoining board. At this point, the staves are ready for mounting the tub box. To mount the staves it is necessary to have the base of the tub ready. Once again, electric machines reduce human effort when cutting the wood down to 62 millimeters thick. The planer makes it possible to perfectly square the faces and edges of each of the boards that will form the bottom. The cuberos work them one by one, seating them and checking their correct union so that they do not have any leakage. At its end, they indicate the order number that they will occupy in the set of the fund since not all have the same size. "Well, now we are going to mark what the diameter of the bottom, of the base, is going to be." With the compass, the circle will be perfect to the desired measure of 3 meters and 10 centimeters. In this set of tables, each part of the lid receives a name that differentiates it from the others. “Well, the parts of the background, as you can see, are the chantel, contrachantel, and then the middle school reaches here, and here the padrón. The same, here, medium, contrachanteles and chantel. " In the same way that the pegs have been placed on the staves, each of the bottom boards has a certain number of pegs that facilitate the assembly of one with the other. Following the numerical order, the cubes are fitting one piece with another. With the blow of mallo, but placing a piece of wood on the edge of the board so as not to damage it, Jesus temporarily mounts the lid. To tighten all the boards together, leaving a compact and impenetrable base, the pressure jack is needed . This is the moment to mark the final circumference with the compass. Now you have to disassemble the boards again to cut them exactly along the marked line. The band saw, due to its narrowness, is the most appropriate to cut the excess wood, gaining the curvature of the ends. The bottom boards are thus prepared and numbered for the final assembly. In two staves of the tub box, Jesus prepares the door that must be in its lower part to be able to access the interior when it needs to be cleaned. Sawing is done with a hand saw, giving it a slight inclination towards the part that will go inside. With the scraper first and with the blade later, this craftsman accentuates the inclination of the edge of the door more, in such a way that the piece that occupies this space fits perfectly. A final sanding leaves the top of the door ready. The lower part must have a small box in which the closing cap will be embedded . With the bramil, Jesus marks the lines that will occupy the lace nipple of the piece that will close this opening. With a self-made blade and then with the chisel, the cutter carves the box in each of the two pieces to the desired depth. This final detail leaves the more than sixty staves ready for the assembly of the tub. Depending on the size you are going to have, the tub will have a certain number of iron rings that will serve to hold and press the staves. In this case it is a tub to hold 18,000 liters of wine and it will take nine rings. The measurements will go in increasing order from a little more than nine meters for the small one to almost ten meters for the large one. To give it the circular shape, these cubes hit the iron plate between the gap left by a wooden frame with the mesh . While one hits, the other two help to move the heavy deck little by little. When the ring has taken a circular shape, it must be cut to the necessary size, leaving it a little larger to have a margin in case of error. Temporary soldering leaves the iron ring closed. "Flare" consists of stretching the iron slightly on one of its sides so that the ring takes the flared shape that facilitates its adjustment to the frustoconical shape that the tub will have . This work is carried out between three men, with a blow of mallo on the anvil. Once all the pieces are prepared: the back, the staves and the sides, the assembly of the tub can be started. Formerly, the support pillars of the tub were carved in stone. At present, this material has been replaced by concrete blocks that the cubers are in charge of placing orderly in the space of the cellar where the tub will be located. On the pillars are placed some timbers called sleepers on which the tub will rest. As the bottom boards have been previously prepared and adjusted, the assembly of one with the other, following the order that has corresponded to them, will be simple. In addition to the tallow that has been applied to the edges of the boards, the strips of cattail, a vegetable fiber that grows spontaneously in swampy places, help to guarantee the waterproofing of the bottom. The staves that will make up the tub box are also arranged, selected and numbered. Once ordered, they can be assembled around the background. But this task is not going to be easy. First, you have to open the bottom a little, separating the central board with wedges, so that the diameter is larger. In this way, when the staves are placed, upon reaching the last one there will be a greater separation space that will facilitate their placement. The placement of the staves follows an order previously studied. First, four pieces will be fixed facing each other. These staves are called "almoas" and are usually the widest. The first pillow to be placed is the one with the opening for the door. After applying the pasty mass of tallow on the staves, reinforced with some strips of cattail, the cuberos try to prop up the main kernel, externally and internally. It is very important that the staves are well leveled and for this Jesus resorts to the plumb line and the eye of a good buckler. Guaranteed its correct inclination, the props can now be secured. The second "almoa" is placed in front of the first. Taking into account that the shape of the tub is frusto-conical, when casting the plumb line, Jesus makes sure that the lower part of the string coincides with the inside of the stave and the top part with the outside. "In other words, the interior plumb down and exterior up." In this way, stave by stave, that small difference in diameter that the tub has between the base and the head is gained . The other two "almoas" must be placed at the perpendicular intersection of the first. Like the previous ones, once leveled, they must be propped up so that they do not alter their position. “This is the rope, which what it is going to do is then hold all the staves of the tino. This is what is going to be in charge of holding the whole tino. Now it is going to be a little loose but as we go mounting staves, it is going to tighten. Hey?." A rope loosely surrounds the four almoas, facilitating the holding of the following staves. The intermediate spaces between the almoas will be occupied by four other staves called "ochavos". Once the gift has been taught and the cattail is placed, the stave is adjusted at the bottom, tensioned by the rope. The internal propping of the "ochavos" will leave the first eight staves perfectly level to fit the rest in the empty spaces. Starting from the first "almoa", the remaining staves, impregnated with tallow on their edges and in the gift, begin to be placed one by one on the base of the tino, held by the rope. The adjustment between the staves from the top is made by inserting the pin into the hole of the previous one. When the cuberos reach the ochavo or the next almoa, they bring them closer together so that the staves are perfectly joined together. The process is repeated continuously with each of the staves: application of tallow and cattail in the gift, assembly on the bottom tensioned by the rope and adjustment of the pieces with the pegs. Little by little, the structure of the box is being completed. The space left for the last stave is wide enough. The spacing between the base boards makes it easy to position and adjust the board. The time has come to remove the wedges that separated the central board and to contract the entire set of the box with the wire rope so that it is completely watertight at its joints. To fix the entire tub box and resist the pressure exerted on the staves by the 18,000 liters of wine that fit inside, the rings must be strong and well tightened. The size of each one depends on the place it will occupy in the tub, and its placement is made from largest to smallest, that is, starting with the one located at the base. At the stroke of mesh, the rings are fitted in their corresponding place from where they will maintain the pressure of all the staves. Once all the rings have been placed in the tub, a scaffolding has been mounted around them to be able to work the upper bottom. "What we are going to do is take the compasses to get the diameter of what the bottom will have ." "Six bars. It is the radius of what the fund will have. ”. After taking the exact measurement with the compass inside the gift, the cubers lift the rings from the middle of the tub upwards to loosen the staves and thus facilitate the adjustment of the bottom. The top bottom, which is two centimeters thinner than the bottom one, has been manufactured table by table in the same way as the previous one, adjusting to the measurements taken. The electric planer makes the job of leveling the wood surface easy. "Well, once we have equalized the bottom on the outside, what we are going to do is mark with the bramil the thickness of the nipple that it is wearing, which is the one that is going to be inserted into the gift of the tino, which is the groove. where we are going to put the bottom later. " Guided by the "chantillón" Jesus adjusts the measure of the gift on the bramil and moves it to the edge of the ring to mark the nipple. Due to the large volume and weight of the bottom, to turn it over and work it on the other side, the best solution is to disassemble it in pieces, inverted and put them back together with the other side facing up. Following the line marked with the bramil, the cubers should lower the edge of the bottom with the brush until it reaches the size that the head's regalia has. While one cuber shapes the nipple, the other lowers the edge of the cap. The final sanding to remove roughness from the wood prepares the bottom of the tub head. Once the bottom is finished, the boards have to be separated to transport them to the tub and assemble them one by one in an orderly fashion. At the same time that the bottom is dismantled, the cuberos take advantage, as on previous occasions, to show the edges of the boards. "The sebum has no other mystery than to cover a little the repellency that the edge of the wood may have , and then, when we pretend the bottom, the sebum that does not want it will expel it and what remains inside acts as a joint.": The gifts where the nipple must be adjusted must also be taught and the cuberos work on this . These craftsmen have prepared a structure of two wooden guides inside the tub that will facilitate the holding of the boards during their placement. The boards are assembled in the box one by one, following the order in which the bottom has been previously assembled. As when removing the iron rings the staves have been loose in the head of the tub, the adjustment of the last boards does not present difficulties. Once the bottom is in place, the iron rings can now be placed so that all the joints, both those between the staves and the top boards, form an airtight body. While they are placing the rings, the structure that has facilitated the placement of the bottom can be dismantled . The pressure of the rings when they are hit with the mallets causes the sebum to overflow from the joints, leaving the inside of the tub waterproof. The two bottoms are flat. In order for a small air chamber to remain on top of the wine to facilitate the natural preservation process, a slight curve must be given to the bottom above. For this, the cubers will use two iron beams that arch with the tensioner. These two beams are going to be fixed by several bolts with nut in the upper bottom. Two operators are required for this task. While one, from the outside, pierces the iron and wood with the drill, the other, inside, places and fixes the nuts. As the nuts are screwed onto their screws, the wood molds itself to the beam and adopts the degree of curvature of the iron, leaving a small air chamber at the head of the tub. The work of adjusting the beams is finished with the fixing of some pieces of wood in the groove of the iron. To finish the tub, it only remains to hermetically fix the door through which all cleaning tasks will be facilitated . The door must conform to the sloping edges of the frame. Jesus goes over them thoroughly with the scraper, the blade and the sandpaper, and tries again and again until the door fits in the gap. Then, show the edges that are going to be in contact and secure the door with the tensioner to prevent the liquid from leaking. The tub, with a capacity for 18,000 liters, has been completed taking its place in the century-old Riojan winery owned by the Muga family. It is difficult to find good cubers who know their work well, since since the beginning of the 20th century cement and ceramic tubs were introduced in our country. Today there are few wineries that have continued to rely on the great advantages of wooden vats to give the wine that characteristic flavor that differentiates it from the others.
