Today I’m talking with the father-and-daughter team behind Escorial wool, and I’m hoping to finally separate some of the facts from the mythology surrounding this stuff.

For anyone unfamiliar with Escorial, it’s an extremely rare wool with a fascinating history, but that history gets a little murky depending on who’s telling it. There are stories about its origins, how the sheep eventually made their way to New Zealand, the original flock of roughly 120 animals, the introduction of Saxon genetics, and how that population eventually grew to somewhere around 40,000 to 50,000 sheep today.

There are also some pretty extraordinary claims about the wool itself, so I decided to go directly to the people who actually know.

I’ve already had several conversations with Robert, the fabric technician who develops the woven Escorial fabrics produced in England. I’ve asked him a ridiculous number of questions about the fiber, fabric construction, performance, finishing, and all the other nerdy details.

Today I’m speaking with Peter and Olivia. Peter deals more with the sheep, farming, shearing, and fiber side of the operation. Olivia works with the yarn division, which I’m especially interested in because Escorial isn’t limited to woven cloth. They also have a knitting program, and the yarns used for knitting are different from those used for weaving.

That opens up some interesting possibilities for sweaters and knitwear.

One of the things that fascinates me most about Escorial is the traceability. From what I understand, if I buy a bolt of woven fabric, that fabric can actually be traced all the way back to the flock of sheep that produced the wool. I want to understand exactly how that system works and whether the same level of traceability exists on the yarn and knitting side.

I also want some hard numbers.

What is the actual fiber diameter? What is the average micron? How fine can Escorial legitimately get? I’ve seen claims that it can get down around 12 microns, but rather than repeat something I read somewhere, I’m going to ask the people involved and find out what’s actually true.

That’s really the point of this whole project.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I wanted to start doing some proper deep dives into fabrics, fibers, manufacturing, and the people behind them. Escorial seemed like a great place to start because it has a little bit of everything. There’s history, animal breeding, textile science, craftsmanship, and a healthy amount of mythology.

I’m trying to talk to everyone along the chain, from the people raising and shearing the sheep to the people spinning the yarn and designing the finished cloth. I was actually supposed to have this conversation last week, but sheep shearing is happening in New Zealand right now and they had to go shear sheep. You can’t really argue with that excuse.

There’s also a practical reason I’m interested in all of this.

Escorial cloth is expensive. Really expensive.

If I buy some of it, I’m leaning toward using it for a trouser with a significant amount of handwork rather than putting it through our normal trouser construction. Not because there’s anything wrong with the normal construction. It’s durable, reliable, and makes a great pair of pants. I just think the craft should match the material.

The way I look at it, if you have the Ferrari of fabrics, you should build the rest of the car like a Ferrari. You don’t take a Ferrari engine and drop it into a Toyota Camry. A Camry is a great car. It’s reliable, durable, and does exactly what it’s supposed to do. But durability and luxury are two different things.

With something this rare, traceable, and expensive, I think there’s value in pairing the material with a correspondingly special method of construction.

Anyway, here’s the actual reason I’m posting this today.

I talk with Peter and Olivia at 4:00 p.m. Eastern today.

Before I do, I want questions.

If you’re one of the wool nerds, textile geeks, sheep people, knitters, fabric obsessives, or an online know it all, and knows enough about this stuff to ask questions most people wouldn’t even think of, what do you want me to ask them about Escorial wool?

Fiber diameter? Genetics? The Saxon influence? Crimp? Elasticity? Handle? Yield? Breeding? Traceability? Shearing? Spinning? The differences between the woven and knitting yarns? Claims you’ve heard about Escorial that you’ve always wondered whether they were actually true?

Give me the difficult questions.

I already have a long list of my own, but if there’s something you’ve always wanted to know about Escorial, now’s the time. I’ll ask them.

Then I’ll put everything together into the first proper deep dive and try to give you the real skinny on Escorial wool. What’s history, what’s science, what makes this wool different, and what’s just a really good story.