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Around this time of the year, local Matakana wineries are well into the process of moving wine from last vintage out of barrel to make way for the wine from the current vintage. A certain number of new barrels will have been acquired and some older barrels will become available for ‘other non-wine related uses’.
The involvement of oak barrels is one of the more arcane parts of winemaking. The choice of oak as the wood to make a barrel from is no accident. Oak expands considerably when wet and this makes it relatively simple to make a watertight container. The expansion of oak is such that stonemasons used to drive dry oak wedges into cracks in stone and then wet them so they would expand and split the stone into manageable pieces. In our parts of the world, many have tried making barrels from other woods – even French oak trees grown locally – and have found that the flavours from these woods do not enhance the flavours of the wine as much as that from the classic French or American oak.
Think of a barrel like a tea bag. The first use of a barrel gives the wine a good dose of oak colour, flavour and aroma. After using the barrel, washing it out, and hanging it on the line to dry, the second use imparts more muted colour and the flavours and aromas move along a little. After the fifth or sixth use the barrel is essentially a container that holds wine and very little oak flavour is imparted into the wine.
Winemaking barrels are almost universally made from oak, mostly from France but we do see barrels made from other European and American oak. Coopers (the folk who make the barrels) choose their wood from coppiced forests that produce sustainable quantities of timber. They select timber that is either tight-grained or open-grained, they season the timber for up to three years before making the barrel and choose whether the staves are bent by fire or by immersion in water. Additionally, the Coopers toast the barrels to varying degrees over fire during assembly. The sheer number of variables present in the selection of barrels means that the winemaker’s decision of what barrels are best for any given wine is more of an art than science.
The final winemaker’s decision is, however, when to cull a barrel from the fold. When this happens, that magical piece of hand-crafted timber and its deep history in local wine becomes a new asset. If you purchase a used barrel from a local winery, ask what wines have been in that barrel. You can then add that information to your own little story for whoever happens to admire that barrel in its new home.
