Last weekend, a guy in my wine Facebook group, name of Bijan, advertised an open house at his wine barrel furniture-wine sales shop. Although I think he sometimes goes to Stuttgart to sell wine and furniture at AAFES, his actual shop is in Igstadt, which is very close to where Bill and I live near Wiesbaden. Bijan has somewhat limited hours, or one can call him and make an appointment.

Many times, I’ve seen Bijan advertising his beautiful wine barrel creations in my group. His pieces are all made from French wine barrels from Bordeaux or riddling racks from the Champagne region of France. Until today, Bill and I have never managed to make it to his place to see his products in person. He usually only opens on certain Saturdays from 10am until 2pm. We tend to sleep in on Saturdays or get to doing other stuff… and by the time we remember he’s open, it’s too late. This week, we made a point of going to see him. He was also kind enough to post a reminder in my wine group.

One of the things I’ve been wanting for our home is more storage for our wine. I’ve also been wanting to put some more furniture in our living room, since until today, it was half bare. I didn’t want to buy another generic wine rack from Amazon. I was hoping for something more unique and interesting. Bijan’s shop fit the bill perfectly.

We were greeted at the door by Marco Polo, the adorable canine ambassador, and I immediately saw what I wanted. There was a wine barrel cabinet that had racks for up to 8 bottles of wine, racks for wine glasses, and a shelf. On top of the barrel was a wooden table top with a glass insert in the middle, which turned the barrel into a pub table. There were several barrels to choose from, each one unique. Most had once held red wine, but there was at least one white wine barrel. Some barrels were light colored, while others were darker. And they each had unique bands around the barrel. We ended up choosing a barrel with black bands, only because it had the wine glass rack in it. The others didn’t have that.

I also wanted a riddling rack to hold some of my wines. The racks were originally used to produce champagnes, but are great as temporary storage for wines at home, too. We selected a dark stained rack with three rows on each side– it opens like an easel, and can hold up to 60 bottles. We never have that much wine in our house, because we drink it constantly. But right now in my basement, we have a bunch of wine in boxes, because we didn’t have enough wine racks. Now we can put the wines away and get rid of some of the boxes.

I’m thinking we’ll get a couple of stools for the new table/cabinet, and then on chilly winter nights, we can sit by the fireplace. Bijan makes stools, or maybe we’ll find a couple locally. It may be worth it to have him make us a couple of them. I’ll probably fill the glass insert with corks. The lady who sold us the cabinet said the wine that was stored in our cabinet was very nice… it’s stamped 2017.

Bijan takes cash and credit cards, and he also accepts the VAT form from Americans, so we don’t have to pay 19% tax. We got a ten percent discount, and ultimately paid just under 1000 euros for everything. Bijan knew exactly how to fit everything in our Volvo so it got home safely. I thought it was going to be hell getting the barrel into our house, but it worked out fine, after a few grunts and heaves from Bill and yours truly. Below are some photos of our new treasures. I forgot to get a picture of the building itself. They really have some unique stuff in there. We may have to go back!

Bijan also sells French wines and ports, and he was kind enough to throw in a couple of bottles for us.