Hey - Does anyone have a clean neutral barrel that would be interested in selling? Four years or older would be great.
Do you want this for white or red Berry? Makes a huge difference (neutral whites are very hard to find).
red
I have 1 or 2, ozoned and hydrated ready to go.
But I thought you were into glass and/or stainless? Want/need a stainless drum?
I might have a barrel or two, but am not sure right now. Since Joe has some, you’re in good shape. If you need more, let me know.
Thanks. You are up in Anderson Valley, right?
My basic issue is that I like wines where the varietal grape and yeast-derived ester flavors are dominate. Ive done some home wine making experiments and the 100% carboy raised wines seem to miss some of the roundness and integration that wines slowly oxygenated in barrels have even though I like the purity of flavor (drinking these wines have made drinking heavy oaked reds almost impossible for me). So my next step is to try bulk aging wine in “neutral” barrels. Time will tell how “neutral” a barrel can really be.
My other approach could be to simply rack stainless-raised wines multiple times but that would obviously be pretty rough on the wines and probably wouldn’t accomplish what I want anyway.
How many gallons are these? 60ish?
Yes I am in Boonville.
The drums are 55 gal, I got them from a place in the east bay. They have just the bung hole and are a lot harder to clean than I anticipated as they don’t slope to the bung hole like barrels do.
I understand what you are talking about in regards to slow ox and how it helps the mouthfeel. I will this year be making a all stainless aged PN. So many folks who have tasted topping wine out of carboy are surprised how pure and fruity the wine by itself actually is.
I may even try aging some in a flex tank (breathable plastic) to see how it turns out. I have tasted some bigger reds done in them and was surprised how good they were. Concrete is another option I may try down the road.
Just make sure you keep a close eye on VA if you do this.
Thanks for the info will do. I usually have pretty low va’s going to barrel but will watch for increases or stick with stainless.