Museum of Barrel Taps

Carrer de la Roca, 3 | 17750 Capmany, Girona
Coordinates: 42.3748440000, 2.9185170000 (map)

The museum of barrel taps, or Museu de les aixetes, in Capmany offers a rare opportunity to study and re-discover the form of a familiar object with no hurry or stress. The setting is more than suitable: the green landscapes of the historic region of Empordà, the relaxed walks around small Medieval towns, a growing number of wine bottles purchased at local Costa Brava wineries, and the anticipation of a hearty Catalan lunch all set the perfect scene for exploration.

Barrel taps on show at this Costa Brava museum have nothing to do with dripping sink taps or complicated shower tap systems in fancy hotels that require a user manual to operate. The barrel taps in question have more to do with winemaking than plumbing, but that is to be expected in Capmany, the heart of the wine region DO Empordà. The location of the museum (within a winery) is also a clear giveaway.

The building housing the barrel tap museum was built in 1764, and there is evidence to suggest that winemaking has been part of these walls ever since. In 1947, Josep Oliveda Casanovas, the grandfather of current owners, founded the winemaking enterprise Grup Oliveda that today produces over 1.5 million litres of wine per year. In 1955, Josep Oliveda had an idea to start collecting barrel taps for a small museum on-site.

The museum collection has over 4 thousand taps, most of which have been made locally and had been used at the Oliveda winery itself. There are foreign-made exhibits as well, brought in from elsewhere in Europe or gifted by colleagues in the industry, like, for example, the four antique taps donated by a liqueur factory in Rosto?k, Germany. The oldest items date back to the 18th century — these are the taps from Lombardy, an Italian region famed for its artful metallurgists. Size-wise, the largest and the smallest taps were made in the French county of Anjou.

Turns out that you can often tell the origins of a tap by its build and design. For example, a handle shaped like a lily betrays tap makers from France — the flower, a symbol of the French monarchy, was frequently present on the French coat of arms. Lilies on taps made before the French Revolution had three petals, while the taps made during Napoleon's rule had only two. Another example is the shape of a military beret of the First Carlist War, popularized by Che Guevara — before the Cuban revolutionary, this headwear had inspired the casters from Navarre to create a tap called txapela, "beret". Visitors of the barrel tap museum will easily identify the origins of the taps of that shape.

Besides countless taps, the museum is home to many other objects that surround a winemaker in her everyday life, from fun accessories to complex mechanisms — oak barrels, glass bottles, tin pitchers, machine tools and their parts, antique carpenter and locksmith tools, grandfather clocks, sewing machines, irons, diplomas commemorating wine awards, family photos... Everything but wine bottles themselves, which can be found aplenty in the next room.

Leaving the museum of barrel taps in Capmany, you may think that anyone could organize a similar museum dedicated to his or her work. Free space aside, finding and collecting things for the museum is the easy part; it is the founding of a successful multigenerational business that is able to weather the competition and various external cataclysms while sustaining the interest of the future generations in maintaining the collection that is the hard part! The Oliveda family can declare a resounding success in all of the above.

Visitor information

Address: Carrer de la Roca, 3 | Capmany
Phone: 972 549 012
Opening hours: Monday-Friday 9:00 am to 6:00 pm, Saturdays 10:00 am to 6:00 pm.