Imagined by Godefroy de Virieu – designer and BACSAC co-founder - the Winter tree is a vertical rack made of chestnut wood for arranging, preserving and ripening fruit and vegetables.
Simple, unadorned and functional, this everyday object can be set down, fixed to a wall or hung like a mobile. Attached to a hoop, the shelves hold harvests from the vegetable garden and market finds, creating a tableau that changes with the seasons. Placed this way with minimum contact, fruits and vegetables have a longer shelf life.
An enthusiastic observer of traditional manufacturing techniques, Godefroy de Virieu drew on the ancestral know-how of the “feuillardier” craftsmen to design this object. Historically associated with the strapping of wine and spirits barrels, they use young chestnut shoots harvested in winter after the sap has settled. Once split, each strap is flattened by hand, while retaining the bark of the rounded part. The straps are then placed in an oven to make the wood more supple, and to bend the stems without breaking them.
Find the Winter tree in the Object Harvest section of our eshop and in our Parisian shop (6 rue des Fossés Saint-Jacques, Paris 75005).
Handcrafted in France using local wood by Atelier CHATERSèN.
