OWNERS of some of the world’s grandest vineyards gather today to witness the felling of a 340-year-old oak that will be made into barrels for ageing their wine.

The 120-ft Morat tree was planted in about 1665 in the Forêt de Tronçais, on the edge of the Massif Central, in the reign of Louis XIV. It is the finest surviving specimen of the king’s programme to develop the perfect oak, tall and straight without knots or kinks for use in building ships.

The National Forestry Office decided to fell the Morat last autumn after it began losing a battle against the great capricorn, a boring beetle. Their aim was to make use of the timber before it deteriorated further. The fine grain wood of the slow-growing sessile oak (quercus petraea) is prized by wine-makers for the flavours that it bestows during ageing.

It was sold by auction for £25,500 to Jean-Luc Sylvain, whose firm is to make more than 60 traditional 225-litre (300 bottle) Bordeaux barrels. These have already been sold to the owners of grands crus including Château Angelus and Château Latour as well as Californian, Chilean, Spanish and Italian winemakers.

“They will be able to draw on the barrels for wine from the 2008 vintage,” M Sylvain said. “The Tronçais oaks activate delicate, fruity flavours close to vanilla and coconut. The Morat barrels will be numbered and circled with chestnut. They will be museum pieces.”

French wine may be losing its market abroad, but the quality of French wood is still unmatched for making barrels, M Sylvain told Le Monde.

The Morat, named after a forester who once tended it, is the most magnificent of the 13 remaining oaks from the plantation supervised by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the Financial Comptroller of the Sun King and the man who created France’s centrally administered state. Out of 50,000 that were planted, all but 1,500 were removed after 50 years, leaving only the finest specimens.

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