Wine Barrel Carving, Unique Features for Custom Wine Cellars

Wine barrels have long been used as containers for transporting and aging wines and liquors.  These wooden barrels have recently found their way into the design world.  The purpose of oak wine barrels is not only limited to storage but also extends to the aesthetics of a living space.

The life expectancy of a wine barrel is three years, on average.  Once they have served their purpose, the barrels are thrown in landfills, sold as firewood, or used as planters for garden patios.  However, wine cellar builders have developed a creative and eco-friendly approach to giving retired oak wine barrels a new lease on life, by recycling them into different forms of wood art, from flooring materials and wine barrel carvings.

Wine Barrel Accessories for Custom Wine Cellars

A growing trend in collecting and displaying wines has similarly led to a sudden interest in wine décor, not only in the hospitality industry but also in residential custom wine cellars.  Wine barrel art carvings are an excellent way to project a personalized and unique appearance in any living space or storage room.

The art of retired wine barrel carvings is a German folk art carving tradition.  Back then, carved wooden barrels were a symbol of status for distinguished wineries.  Decorated barrels were put on display on their wine tanks, in tasting rooms, wine cellars, or hung in an entranceway.  Wine barrel carvings depict a wide range of subjects, such as favorite vintages, a coat of arms, a company logo, wildlife scenes, and landscapes.

Had it not been revived by a group of modern wood artisans, this old-world carving tradition would have faded into oblivion.  There are only a handful of skilled wood carvers continuing the tradition of hand-carving recycled wine barrels today.  One such artisan is Peter Forbes, who has been creating stunning and unique barrel carvings for about 15 years now.

Wine Barrel Carving Designs by Peter Forbes

Working One-On-One With Clients

Peter Forbes, Coastal’s artistic and talented wine barrel carver works one on one with his clients regarding retired wine barrel design ideas, in order to accurately capture their characteristics and individual taste.  He then translates those ideas through sketches, which he creates by hand and sends to his clients for their approval.  His carvings are heirloom quality works of art that can dominate any space and even outlast us all.

The entire wine barrel can be carved, but the barrel end is the part often used in wine barrel carvings.  The barrel end includes about 4 to 12 inches of surrounding hoops and staves.  They make a magnificent heirloom or a stunning cradled picture that is sure to impress visitors and guests.  The barrel end configuration can also be used to create table tops that can serve as tasting tables in wine-tasting rooms.

Although carving designs on retired wine barrels can be painted in a variety of colors, designers encourage their clients to showcase the natural beauty of the wood by applying paint sparingly.  Since these hand-carved barrels are made from reclaimed oak wine barrels, it is guaranteed that these elegant pieces of art will last a very long time.

I gravitated towards the custom wine cellars division because of my career as a homebuilder in prior years.  I was very much in tune with the importance of accessorizing a wine cellar, if you will, not just with wine racks, refrigeration, and the door, but also with all of the other elements. 

H2: Wine Barrel Carvings for Unique Custom Wine Cellars  

When we came across your product, I was very intrigued by it simply because it’s personalized, it is custom, it is very unique, and it makes a statement. So I understand the importance of accessorizing a wine cellar; and now that I am more established in the industry (Coastal Custom Wine Cellars is two and a half or almost three years old) and we are much more established now, I want to focus more on the additional items other than just the basic components of a wine cellar. 

Peter: I’m happy! I love the idea! I have been doing this (wine barrel carvings) for about 15 years now, and I am one of the very, very small handfuls of people actually on the whole planet doing this. I believe it is a kind of resuscitation of an old art form. Going back the other year, it is only getting known, and as you said, the nice part of each one of this is it is custom made, they become heirlooms because they outlast, that’s all. 

But the most exciting one is when we actually work together on the wine barrel design, and quite often actually, we become quite good friends, stay in touch, and they become good friends. Some even for years, we still stay in contact and share some great stories, which is the nice part of the whole deal. 

Jerry: Exactly! Actually, you do have a bond, not with everyone but certainly with those that you spent a deal of time on the phone and when you visited their home. I get Christmas cards from a few actually. 

Peter: Absolutely, yeah! That’s great! My favorite one was somebody who was having a house built, and the wife was sort of cautiously getting this back area for their new wine cellar and for weeks, we had been sending these emails, and when the barrel finally showed up the day that they got their house, the timing was perfect. He was absolutely relieved because somehow he had seen the emails and thought she was having an affair! So not only they did get the barrel but relieved that their marriage was still intact. 

Jerry: Someone to drink the wine with. 

Peter: Yeah! 

Tim: So Peter, maybe you can show us some examples of the type of what that you do? 

Examples of Wine Barrel Carvings Designed to Bring Custom Wine Cellars to a New Level 

Peter: I will show you this one. This one is for some private collectors who have their own wine cellar. This is the jumping horse in here. These people grow plants; they are horticulturists and the tough part of this one, it’s kind of hard to see, but in real life, you could see it in the background underneath the horse those are all glass buildings. 

So I’m actually having them carved something out of wood to make it look like glass, which is a bit of a challenge.  They have their own vineyard, but they actually don’t sell the product. It’s been there just to make their own wine. They are actually doing that because they are horticulturists. So this is the design we worked on together. 

Wine Barrel Carvings California Wine Cellar Design

Tim: I want to ask. How can you make wood look like glass? How do you do that? You are not giving away your techniques, then? 

Peter: Yeah! I was just a little done with the colorization, and it worked in the end. 

Tim: I’m curious. How did that work? When they ask for something, did you just come up with the wine barrel design? Did they show you what they wanted? How did you arrive at this look exactly? 

Peter: First thing they wanted that was very tough was their logo. They wanted it there, and they wanted a jumping horse somehow because that is called the Jumping Horse Vineyard. They also wanted to have the vineyard and some grapes. So I just got the list of things they want on there, and it’s up to me to somehow put them together in a cohesive way. 

Tim: So, did you do a sketch for them first? Do they have an idea? 

Peter: Yeah!  We worked back and forth on the sketches. I know I can get in trouble for this, but I don’t charge people for that part, I really enjoy it. I know graphics people will charge it for doing this per hour.  I just started doing it. I think it’s just something nice to have a bonus or design something for free. 

Tim: So when you do a sketch, are you doing something on the computer? Or are you doing a hand drawing sketch? Are you posting it to them? What’s the difficult process around that? How do you get to them then? 

Peter: I’m old, Tim. I still do it with a pencil. I just use a pencil drawing. Sometimes I can get a logo and super-imposed it on a blank barrel that I have just to get a general idea. But we kind of nail it down to what we want. We actually do a full-size pencil drawing. 

Tim: So, do you send them the drawing? Do you take a picture of it? Do you scan them? How do they get to see it? 

Peter: Yup, I just take a picture of the wine barrel carvings, then put it on my computer and send them the picture. 

Tim: Ah!  So you are not that old-fashioned because you are actually scanning your drawing then and emailing it presumably. 

Peter: Probably.  You’ve busted me.  You got me! 

Tim: You’re techy! Okay. 

Peter: Yeah!  I don’t mail it to them.  I have another one.  This one was interesting.

Wine Barrel Carvings for Custom Wine Cellars Part Two

Tim: Nice!  I got to tell you.  Since I saw this (wine barrel carvings) a little while ago, I’ve been having nightmares.

Peter Forbes: Ah, good for you.

Jerry Wilson of Coastal Custom Wine Cellars: I remember looking at this one a while back.  It’s one of my favorites.

Peter Forbes: Yeah, we got Africa, spider, the red dot is Africa, and then we have ‘Wine Mine’ so I don’t need to carve the mine entrance which would look like a rock or something and then I did a gold leaf. The nice part of using the tools that I use in wine barrel carvings is I can cut underneath so that the spider actually looks like it’s walking across the sand.  So I thought this is a nice representation of all the stuff that she had.  This is kind of fun to put things together.

Tim: So looking on one of those legs, it’s actually there’s a space underneath of it as if it’s coming out of the barrel.

Peter Forbes: Yeah.  There are 2 or 3 of them that you can’t see from this angle, but 2 or 3 of them.  So it actually looks like the spider is walking across the wood.  But it was all done in the oak itself.  I didn’t add anything on to the wine barrel carvings.  People ask me how I know how deep I’m going because I can’t see.  I’m only dealing with maybe varying depths of the wood an inch or so on average.  The interesting thing is because everything I use is from recycled barrels.  I can start smelling the wine that’s been saturated in the oak.  As long as I smell the wine, I know I’m getting near the end.  And I’m getting happier!

Tim: That’s a really cool wine barrel art design.

Peter Forbes: I had a guy call me from Indonesia.  He is a geologist and he is up there in Headhunter Country actually and he asked me to do a Neanderthal man on a barrel, I guess for his man cave.

Tim: You mean literal Headhunter Country because when you say headhunter I think it’s a recruitment guy.

Peter Forbes: No, no.  So we did this one.  He originally wanted just the Neanderthal man on the background with the mask on.  When people see this thing, I know it’s not going to look great.  So I thought I come up with this.  You put this in your man cave, so when people walk in, this guy is looking at you.

Tim: So Peter, I’ve a question on this one.  What am I looking at?  Cause I’m not seeing a wine barrel like the other ones.

Peter Forbes: You are looking straight on the wine barrel.   You’re not seeing the sides.  That’s all.

Tim:  I don’t understand.  So this rim here, what is this?

Peter Forbes: That’s the outside of the wine barrel.  It goes down about 5 inches.  The background there, when I finish doing the piece, I send them the finished picture.  So I put on a cave wall.

Tim: It certainly looks in keeping with the design.

Peter Forbes: Yeah, I can’t help myself in.

Tim: So presumably you do aside from wine barrel carving, you’re also doing other forms of art then?

Peter Forbes: Yes.  Here’s a carving I did.

Tim: Oh that’s beautiful.

Peter Forbes: That’s about 6 feet long, 1500 log cabin.  But those are interior logs.  The small one’s here, the big one’s here.  So we pick one of our trees, 1500 of theirs.

Tim: So how long does something like that take?

Intricate Carving Designs by Peter Forbes

Peter Forbes: Hard to say because I work on a couple of things at a time.  So probably it took me 3 weeks to a month.  It’s very, very detailed.  You can’t see a lot of the detail because I go in there with a magnifying glass so you can see back here there’s a cabin, there’s a cabin here.  I actually want to carve it, I carve behind the posts, and I have a magnifying glass and there’s a door there.  I actually put a doorknob on the door.  Nobody is going to see that but I know it’s there.  With the magnifying glass, it was very large and it seems like my thing to do.  So I really enjoy getting into that ‘uber’ detail.

Tim: So for custom wine cellars then, we are not necessarily limited to wine barrel tops like that because basically, the limitation is just somebody’s imagination.

Peter Forbes: Yeah! I actually carved a whalebone. Someone brought a whalebone. They said, can you carve a whalebone? So I said, yeah! I’m an artist.  We work really hard to get perspective so I use a lot of perspective in shading to give more depth to it.

Have Coastal Custom Wine Cellars Create a Unique Feature in Your Wine Room

Have Coastal Custom Wine Cellars Create a Unique Feature in Your Home Wine Cellar

Wine barrel carvings can create an interesting accessory in your home wine cellar. These environment-friendly custom products are hand-carved by the artisan, Peter Forbes. If you want to make your wine room special with a wine barrel carving, why not go ahead and call us at +1 (949) 200-8134 to make your wine cellar truly unique?