3 BARREL OF BUBBLY

When Eugène Mercier wanted to promote his eponymous champagne house at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1889, he came up with a genius idea to build the world’s largest wine barrel. The 20-tonne cask made from old Hungarian oak trees could hold 200,000 bottles-worth of bubbly, and it took eight days and 24 oxen to transport it to the fair. Mercier’s great feat of engineering was rewarded with second prize – the rst prize going to the newly unveiled Eiffel Tower.