Definition: Cybox

It is hard to believe that a new invention could cause such a stir in just a few years, given that it is at once classic, avant-garde and revolutionary in such a traditional profession, which no one had dared to touch until now. Having visited (07/2005) the artisan company Cybox SA, which manufactures the square barrel, we admit, in true Vaudois style, to having been pleasantly disappointed! The Cybox is available in different sizes: 400 litres, 225 litres, 112.5 litres and 56 litres. Swiss winegrowers were late to start using barrels to age their best wines, only beginning to do so in the 1980s. And now, Cybox SA's original invention is revolutionising a tradition that has remained unchanged for centuries, as the major wine producers in Bordeaux, Burgundy and other New World winemakers considered the classic barrel to be the most sophisticated container.

All this because Cyrille Savioz, an amateur winemaker and carpenter from Valais, injured himself while moving a full barrel. He then uttered these prescient words: "Why aren't barrels square? This accident would never have happened to me if they were." From then on, he never stopped thinking about it and developed his first square barrel. He wasn't the only one to try this, because if successful, the advantages are numerous:

space savings, labour savings, no handling, transport or energy required, simplified stirring, a simplified heating system that is reliably reproducible in terms of intensity and duration, and finally, the recycling of beautiful oak panels into parquet flooring to preserve the residual value of a material as noble as oak.

He was the first to achieve this in 1997, mastering all the problems of watertightness and bung location, while equipping the container with a double internal slope system, allowing for easy and efficient cleaning and reducing oxidation by minimising contact between the wine and the air.

His efforts resulted in the creation of a parallelepiped-shaped container which, for the sake of simplicity, was named the square oak barrel, bearing the Cybox brand. This square-section barrel is characterised by the fact that its upper and lower plates are inclined, one (upper) towards the rear to allow the bung, located at the front, to be naturally at the highest point, the other (lower) towards the front to allow the liquid to flow naturally towards the drain opening.

Cyrille Savioz succeeded in manufacturing a rectangular oak barrel that offers exactly the same technical characteristics to wine or any other spirit as a traditional oak barrel, whether in terms of aroma, vinification time or handling.

In 1997, the inventor presented his work at the Geneva Inventions Exhibition, where he won a silver medal. The following year, he won an award at the Nuremberg Exhibition. The product then caught the attention of Jean-Claude Roux, a carpenter and entrepreneur in Grimisuat. Having followed and supported the development process from the outset, he purchased the marketing licence for Switzerland, France, Austria and Liechtenstein. In 2001, he founded Cybox SA, a company dedicated to producing this invention on an industrial scale and distributing square barrels in these countries. Thanks to collaboration with the Changins School of Engineering (viticulture section) and the Valais University of Applied Sciences in Sion (HEVs) for the technical aspects, collaboration with the Sierre School for the business plan, and the purchase and creation of a production facility, nothing was left to chance.

Unlike a Cybox, traditional barrels are made empirically, without plans or guidelines. In fact, the manufacture of a Cybox barrel is no longer a craft, but an industrial and automatable process. It is produced on a production line. Each worker therefore specialises in a specific task. Manufacturing efficiency is therefore significantly improved and streamlined compared to that of a traditional barrel. The purchased oak staves are cut to the desired dimensions and then assembled using an inventive grooving process. Once the six parts of the barrel are ready, they pass through an infrared machine for toasting for the desired time and at the appropriate temperature. The parts are then assembled using simple grooves, and finally, the barrel is hooped and the front and rear faces are wedged in place. With this geometry, the staves are assembled by pressing them together to form the different "panels", then hooped to assemble these panels in a watertight manner: no heating is therefore necessary.

As part of the major study conducted by the Changins School of Engineering, entitled "Swiss Grand Crus" – "Ageing of local wines in indigenous oak barrels" – "Toasting of the Cybox square barrel", subcontracted by the Valais University of Applied Sciences from 1 January 2002 to 31 December 2004, we provide the following summary:

With the square barrel as proposed by Cybox SA, the toasting process becomes an industrial-type process, i.e. uniform and reproducible in all respects, with the only uncertainty being the quality of the wood. This work has shown that with a radiant flux of 1,500 W/m2, produced by an electric heating element with a surface temperature of around 800 K (representative wavelength of 5 microns, i.e. infrared), it is possible to obtain, in terms of the physical properties of the wood, heating that is in every way similar to traditional artisanal heating, provided that the wood is exposed to the heat flux for between 12 and 15 minutes.

While the Cybox avoids the heating required to shape the staves of a traditional barrel, the toasting process, which has a significant influence on how the barrel releases its aromas into the wine, remains an essential step. However, it becomes an industrial process that is controllable and reproducible: imagine an oven under which the various components of the barrel pass, under clearly defined conditions, to undergo the necessary heat treatment. Parallel tests of aromatic analysis and vinification in industrially heated barrels confirm that the proposed heating is in every way comparable to the traditional artisanal heating applied to conventional barrels.

Cybox SA uses staves selected from leading stave suppliers, ensuring top quality from French, American and Eastern European sources.

The direct consequence of this rationalisation of production is that the square barrel, as it is more commonly known, has lower costs than its round counterpart, which we will discuss in more detail. Indeed, the manufacture of the Cybox offers substantial cost savings, which will lower the selling price. This argument is very important for today's winemakers, who are often facing financial difficulties. The Cybox has many competitive advantages over the traditional barrel. Firstly, the selling price is significantly lower than that of a traditional barrel. The selling price of a Cybox is around CHF 750, while that of a traditional barrel is closer to CHF 950 (order of magnitude, based on early 2005 figures – subject to frequent changes). In addition, the winemaker will save space. Unlike round barrels, Cyboxes are designed to be stacked. This advantage also makes it easier to transport Cyboxes. Six Cyboxes can be stored on a Euro pallet, whereas a traditional barrel alone will take up the entire pallet. The third competitive advantage is that it facilitates the various handling tasks essential to barrel ageing. For example, the position of the bung at the front of the barrel makes stirring easier. The final comparative advantage is, as explained above, the quality of the charring, which is perfectly reproducible. The only disadvantage of the Cybox, often cited by winemakers, is its shape. It is true that the traditional appearance of the round barrel harmonises well with the stone vaults of the cellars. When visiting a winery, consumers are accustomed to the traditional shape of barrels, which is a sign of authenticity, traditionalism and brand image. Cybox SA is trying to convince interested parties that this visual drawback is more than offset by the competitive advantages mentioned above.

One of the latest innovations concerns stirring in the Cybox, which takes just 20 seconds. A new permanent stirring device, which operates without the wine coming into contact with the air, is responsible for new subtle flavours. The patented device allows complete and effective stirring of the lees in four back-and-forth movements. Once the barrel is empty, a tool allows the stirrer to pass through the barrel's drain hole.

The result is truly interesting, as it is now possible to say that the Cybox produces wine-making results that are in every way similar to those of traditional barrels. We dare to make this claim because it has been confirmed by the winegrowers who use it. No blind tasting has been able to identify the wines tested over two years. The icing on the cake is that the Cybox is completely environmentally friendly. After three years of use in winemaking, during which the oak has given the wine all its benefits, anyone can transform this container into ten square metres of perfect quality parquet flooring.

In Switzerland, the very recent public limited company Cybox SA ranks first among cooperages. This start-up has serious sales and growth ambitions. To enable its expansion, it recently acquired a new production site of more than 2,800 m² in Sion, Valais. Its current sales are still modest (500 barrels per year), but Cybox SA, which has acquired the marketing patents for rectangular barrels for France, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Austria, plans to significantly increase its sales to around 5,000 barrels per year within four years. The main traditional Swiss cooperage is called Kennel. It has its production site in Küssnacht (SZ). It mainly manufactures large barrels and casks (with a capacity of over 1,000 litres). Its production is relatively low, producing around 200 to 300 barrels per year. There are a few other small Swiss manufacturers, but their market is not very extensive. Examples include the "Le Broquier" cooperage in Grandvaux (VD), Heinz Martin-Louis in Ligerz (BE) and the "Thurnheer" cooperage in Berneck (SG). The significant problem of storage costs (stocks must be very large for the storage of wood) and very low margins are leading to the demise of small cooperages.