My name Barral comes from the word barrel…
Friday May 10th, 2013I come from a family of wine-growers in the South of France. And my family name couldn’t relate more to that because the name “Barral” comes from the old French word “baral” which means barrel… A baral used to be a tiny barel of wine that wine-growers used to take everyday for their breakfast in the vineyards! Here is the proper definition (in French, sorry!!!) that I found in the book “Nouveau cours complet d’agriculture théorique et pratique” published in 1809 by François Rozier: “BARAL BARIL BARILLE BARRIQUE : Vases de différentes capacités dans lesquels on met du vin ou autres liqueurs. Il en sera fait mention au mot générique TONNEAU”.
The British journalist Rosemary George mentions a “barral” in her reference book “The Wines of the South of France“.
In the Rhône, before the change of measuring units after the French Revolution, was also a measuring unit. We find in some old commercial documents that it waas not hectolitres but barraux that used to be traded. One “barral” roughly was the equivalent of 50 litres, but this variated a bit from a place to another (see below).
Source: The Châteauneuf du Pape Wine Book , Harry Karis.
In addition to that, it is in the Hérault département (in the Languedoc, near Montpellier), where I was born, that the “Barral” family name is the most frequent.
