Cooperage

In 1979 Claudio Bernal, the last cooper to work in Seville, donated all the tools and objects from his workshop to this museum. Cooperage, or barrel-making, is one of the trades that has suffered a marked decrease in production. From being the archetypal container for both storage and transport, barrels in western Andalusia were relegated to ageing wine and preserving olives. This last function has also been in decline over recent years, since barrels have been replaced by large plastic containers, although production still survives almost exclusively for wine in the El Condado area of Huelva, in Montilla-Moriles (Córdoba) and around Jerez (Cádiz).