Maybe by "French botti" it's more like very large French oak barrels?

Maybe he's referring to tonneaux.

Remember a botte is just a large barrel, so would imagine that a 500L French tonneaux could be called a botte if the word tonneaux was not used. Certainly it's not as big as some of the botti, but they're still pretty good sized barrels!

Yup, I agree.