Giant Cask

The Giant Cask or Giant Barrel (German: Riesenfass, locally just Fass or, in the local Palatine dialect, the Därgemer Fass), is a tourist attraction in the Palatine spa and district town of Bad Dürkheim in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate. The wine barrel has a diameter of 13.5 metres, a volume of about 1,700,000 litres or 1,700 m³ and is thus the largest cask in the world. However, it is not used for the storage of wine, but houses a restaurant.

The Giant Cask on St.-Michaels-Allee 1 is northeast of the old town in the water meadows of the Isenach stream on the western edge of the 45,000 m² Brühlwiesen meadows. Every year on the second and third week in September the Dürkheim Wurstmarkt (lit.: "sausage market") takes place on these fields. The Wurstmarkt is the biggest wine festival in the world, playing host to over 600,000 visitors. Access to the Weinfass and the Wurstmarkt is from the B 37 federal highway (Ludwigshafen am Rhein–Kaiserslautern) just to the north.

The barrel was built in 1934 by Bad Dürkheim vineyard owner and master cooper, Fritz Keller, using wood to fashion it into the standard shape using traditional methods, albeit oversized. To construct the cask nearly 200 spruce trees were felled in the Northern Black Forest, all about 40 metres high. One tree was needed for each of the 178 staves, each 15 metres long and 15 cm thick. In all, more than 200 m³ of wood was used. The timber was supplied by the Krauth & Co. Sawmill in Rotenbach in the Enztal valley.

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