I used to work ITB and today live in New England where winters are mighty cold. I recently bought a number of logs so I could cut and split them to keep warm in days ahead.
Most of the wood is red oak. I noticed that shortly after it is cut and split, it turns white. It is juicy once split as it was felled recently. The smell was like a barrel room, though. It made me wonder…
Do oak barrels consist of red or white oak, or both?
Is there a standard length of aging or drying before a felled tree can qualify for barrel use?
If not and this aging varies, how have you seen this impact the flavor profile of the end product wine?
White oak (Quercus alba) is what most American oak barrels are made from, I believe. Most French / European oak is Q. Robur and/or Q. Petraea. American barrels are made by sawing the staves, french barrels are made by splitting the staves, this is a function of the structure of the wood but allows you to get greater numbers of barrels out of the same amount of American Oak than French, and is part of the reason American oak has a stronger flavor (by some accounts / to some tastes at least). Beyond that, aging varies from 2-3 years typically and up to 4-5 in a few cases (this is before coopering the wood, not after the barrel is made). Some American wood is kiln dried I believe. Generally the longer you air dry the wood before coopering the milder and subtler the flavor is, the shorter the period the more overt the flavors can be. But it’s not just intensity, shorter air drying will give sappier / greener / more “raw” flavors. There are a ton of other factors in the barrel impact on the wine though, the biggest perhaps being: origin of the wood, toast level and most importantly who made the barrel and how.
I think whiskey barrels use kiln dried white oak - but not sure on this.
Great thread. I was having a conversation with an Italian winemaker recently when the discussion of oak came up. The points he wanted to impress us with were:
All oak, whether french, american, or slovain, are not the same. The oak barrels of ten years ago are not same, for the most part, as those used today. The age of the oak tree also, in his mind, plays a huge part in the flavors and tannin levels emitted into the wine. His point was that most of the older oak trees are gone, particularily in France and Slovenia to a lesser extend. Trees are having to be cut younger and younger to keep up with the growing demand (this being further fueled by winemakers insisting upon using 100% new oak in the modern style). The wood produced from these younger, smaller trees produce results in the wine many winemakers are just learning to deal with.
His thoughts were that 1. Demand would so outstrip supply of new oak barrels that lessening the use of new oak would become mandatory pricewise. 2. The impacted flavors of the young oak would lessen oak treatments, ie traditional 12 months in new oak made be reduced to 8-9. The barrel would then still have more “punch” for its second usage than today.
He thinks many winemakers are/were slow to pick on these differences in flavors. He thought many were caught blindsided when they barrel aged their wines the normal periods, but the people were crying of the wines being “over oaked”.
Any comments or thoughts? He is on the mark or way off?
I think he’s full of crap on at least one level. The vast majority of wine purchasers are still of the belief that more oak is better. It’s only us geeks who bitch about wines being over-oaked.
He was giving his opinion from an European perspective. Only about 20% of his wine comes to America. At the retail price levels of his wine here in the States, especially after the three tier wine distribution systems get done with it, many of the drinkers here are either wine geeks or huge wine lovers. The Europeans predominately do not like the heavy oak treatments popular here with “average” drinkers. That was another conversation about how some of the wineries are lining up stylistically depending upon whether most of their sales were to the States or Europe and Asia.
So I’m still wondering about the flavor issues and the validity of his statements.
Gordon, I can’t say for sure, but I’m highly skeptical of any serious change in barrels in the past ten years. Even I’ve been around wineries for that time and worked with barrels as old as the mid-90s. I’m not seeing or hearing anything about that. I do hear about the increase in production making for less consistency in barrel quality, particularly in toasting quality. That could result in a huge difference in results with barrel aging, but that’s always been true to a certain extent. One house’s “medium toast” is another’s “medium plus.” Length of drying time for the staves is another variant that’s always been around, and how the wood was dried – air vs. kiln for example.
One thing I expect to see more of is refurbished barrels. I’m experimenting with one from reWine here in Salem, OR. They’re taking used barrels, shaving them and retoasting very carefully, providing some element of a renewed barrel with a lot less cost and waste (great quarter sawn oak made into planters a few years after coopering). One thing they can’t renew is the porosity of the newly coopered wood, but still, I’m interested to see how they do. Already lots of top (good) wineries are trying out the barrels, which is great to see.
Tom, I can’t speak for them, but an 8 hour toast over an electrical element I’m figuring will take care of any issues that weren’t shaved off in the recoopering process.
I used recooped FF chard barrels on my 02 vintage and was pleased with the aromas and flavors I got from them. When I put it out to all the other WM on the other board many said they were down on it because of the (2/3 yr.)seasoning of the the staves was lost and the barrels were being shaved down to “raw” oak. I have been tempted to give it another go as new barrel prices are getting out of hand.
That’s interesting. Makes me want to see what the shaved barrels look like. It’s not like the wood is green in the middle though. The drying process dries the whole piece of wood, that I know from drying any firewood (oak included). So I’m not inclined to think there’s any issue, but I haven’t actually seen or asked about what condition the wood is in when shaved. I have seen the inside of a reconditioned barrel and it looked great.
Very cool topic Alex, and the responses are great. Speaking with a few coopers in France, they also mentioned the average age of the tree as going down recently. No more info on perception of tastes were mentioned. I figure it will take quite a while to know if there are noticable changes in tastes, notes, etc.
Vincent, did Rewine give you any indication if this could be done more than once? If a stave is 3/4" thick (I am guessing here) and they shave off 1/8" you’d still have 5/8" left - begging the question whether you could do this one (or two?) more times. The cost savings must be amazing - and I like the way it could reduce the number of trees felled.
Also, if the porosity is not that of a newer barrel, (1) are there any numbers on the angels’ share - i.e., do the evaporation amounts decline? (2) beyond the use as a new-barrel substitute, do you think this could be good for a semi-neutral oak type of treatment or as a short-term storage solution (such as the last few months in a 24+ month oak regimen where newer barrels might need to be used for newer incoming vintage)? TIA once again.
The crux of my initial question revolved around that the Italian winemaker I spoke with said the younger trees do (and are) make a difference in tastes and flavors imparted to the wines. Whether these changes are somehow more prevalent in nebbiolo and barbera grapes than other grapes, I don’t know. But having a PhD. in enology, teaching in the university, and being a hands on wine maker, I had no reason to doubt him.
Also as Vincent mentioned, couple with my Italian friend, the demand for barrels has lead to the use of more kiln cure staves (faster cure times) than orginal air cured staves. I have no idea if this affects flavors in any way, especially if the barrel is toasted. Perhaps some of you can comment. Seems many of the barolo makers (especially the more traditional ones) were not using toasted barrels, this may also affect the issue overall.
Alex, good questions. I don’t know the answers, but you might connect with reWine directly at rewinebarrels@gmail.com. Trent Thomas is the sales guy there. It’s a small operation and they’re new, so they likely don’t know about refurbishing refurbished barrels. AT this point, simply renewing barrels once would be a huge step. Beyond that, who knows.
![[berserker.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/8/8600bbd4810d342b8fbd4ffb62b4f0026275fd37.gif "berserker"){kind=small}
I am simply hoping to learn.