The San Francisco call., 1896-04-19
The Gigantic Wine Cask al
Fresno Which Holds
10000 Gallons.
HEIDELBERG IS FAR ECLIpsED.
It Took Two Cars of Steel to Hoop It
In and Used Lumber Enough
for a Mans on.

Down at Fresno, on the st. George Vine
yard, has lately been erected a gigantic
wine cask, or tun, beside which the famed
Great Tun of Heidelberg sinks into insig-
nificance. 1t is the biggest in the world.
For almost $50 years the Great Tun has
been celebrated far and wide for its i'm
mense size, and nothing on the globe
could compare with it. 1t was built in a
part of the picturesque castle of Heidel-
berg, the finest in all Germany, itself
erected at the end of the thirteenth CEN
tury.
Mighty rulers and brave knights have
occupied it. and throngs of beautiful ladies
aud their royal escorts have gathered at
the old castle on the Neckar and partaken
of the wine which the Great Tun held. It
has got into the cyclopedias and into all
history as the one unreachable, irreproa oach-
able thing in the world in the way of
winemaking.
So it has been by right, too, for till now
there was nothing anywhere to compare
with it in size. But the gentlemen who
own the st. George vineyard have
knocked the fame out of the gigantic Hell
delberg tun, and 1T is has sheen. History
will have to be corrected.
The Great Tun holds $4,000 German GAL
Ions, or AZ, 600 American gallons, while the
st. George tun holds no less than "a. 600
gallons, or almost twice as much as the
tun which has for 15O years been figuring
in history.
1t took two carloads OF steel to hoop the
gigantic cask, and there is enough Ium ber
in it to construct an elegant mansion
The lumber IS all redwood, obtained from
the forests of Humboldt County Not one
stick in ten from which the material was
selected would answer. Absolute freedom
from any kind of flaws was required.
When the redwood was selected it took
almost two years for it to dry and undergo
the preparation for the cask About two
complete railroad trains of this California
redwood is used in the Fresno great tun.
The tun towers to a height of no less
than thirty feet and it is twenty-six feet
wide. 1t can contain thirty carloads of
wine.
This is by all odds the greatest cask
that ever was built, said George H Malta,
one of the largest owners OF the St. George
vineyard, at the Bohemian CLUB day or
two ago. I'VE built it and the other casks
in the winery so as to always have a sup
ply of uniform wine on hand The big
cask inside is twenty-four feet by twenty
four feet"
But Mr.. Malta, not satisfied with having
Knocked the spots off the Heidelberg tun
with one gigantic piece of architecture,
started in and erected three more casks,
any one of which holds more than the
Heidelberg tun. They are in the vineyard
not far from the king of tuns, and are con-
structed for blending purposes.
"These each stand twenty feet by twenty
four feet over all. said Mr.. Malta, land
they hold about Al, 900 gallons each, or an
amount equal to eighteen carloads 1 had
to have them in order to enable me to
make some fifty cars of wine uniform and
thus supply wine men with uniform
class OF wine at distant times in the future
Not only is the great tun built in the
strongest manner, but all OF them are.