This week in the winery we’ve been topping up barrels.
While many credit the Romans with stealing the concept of the wooden barrel from the Celts and putting it to use for the storage and transport of wine, there is some evidence that the ancient Babylonians used barrels made from palm-wood to transport wine from Armenia to Mesopotamia way back in the infancy of wine itself, nearly ten thousand years ago.
Of course the benefits of storing wine in wooden barrels would have been noticed immediately. Wood is porous, allowing oxygen in and carbon-dioxide out. Wood has particular flavors that it imparts on wine as well. The arts of barrel making and barrel aging would be the next quantum leap in the evolution of winemaking.
Today wine is aged primarily in barrels made of oak which comes from France, Hungry, Slovenia and the USA. During its sojourn in barrel, wine undergoes many changes. One critical side-effect of barrel aging that winemakers must pay attention to is evaporation. While wine cellars are kept cool and damp enough to promote maturation of wine without allowing for proliferation of bacteria, wine still evaporates steadily and quickly.
In order to prevent an air-pockets from forming in the barrels and spoiling the wine, we top the barrels with wine from a reserve every three weeks. Usually one barrel is tapped and sacrificed to all the others. At the Lafond facility, two men working from opposite corners of the cellar toward the center take all day to finish the job.
Click images to enlarge:
Carlos Mascherin, Santa Barbara Winery
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