Barrel Selection 2011

This is the time of the year that we order new barrels for the 2011 Harvest.

When ordering barrels we must first determine the wines that we intend to make for the year.

Then we determine the number of new barrels that we will want to use.

From that we determine which particular barrels we will order.

French or American Oak.

Sometimes wine makers tell us what kind of barrels they use, sometimes it is a mystery. But different kinds of oak can do very different things to the wine.  French and American Oak are different species and affect wine quite differently. American Oak  species is Quercus alba while French Oak is Quercus robur or Quercus petraea.  American oak tends to be more opened grained and more intensely flavored than French oak with more sweet flavors and vanilla. This is generally because American oak has two to four times as much lactones as does French Oak. French oak, on the other hand, tends to be much tighter grain (particularly the Quercus petraea) and generates more delicate and silky tannins. French oak tends to add more spices, toasted almond flavors and flavors of exotic fruits. In general French oak is used for more delicate, sophisticated wines and American oak is used for more robust, aggressive wines.

Our plan this year will be to use more than 80 % French oak. About 80% of all of the barrels that we will use will be new oak.

The Cost and Life of Barrels.

The best new French Oak barrels will cost about $1200 per barrel. A new American Oak barrel is closer to $400 per barrel. So, there is, for many winemakers, a strong financial incentive to use American Oak.  For our best wines, Concerto, our Reserve Merlot and Adagio, we will use almost all new French Oak and we will use the barrels only once. Piacere and our Cabernet Franc will get about 50% new barrels and we will use a few American Oak barrels for those wines. Only our Scherzo Cabernet Rosato uses barrels that have been used more than twice. So each year when we bottle our wine we have once used barrels that we will sell to other wineries, many in Napa, for about $200-250 per barrel if it is French and $100-$150 per barrel if it is American.

Toast Levels.

Barrels are generally available in light toast, medium toast, medium plus toast and heavy toast. Barrels are toasted by placing them over an oak fire after they have been made.  We generally buy medium plus toast with one or two heavy toast barrels "thrown in."  Toasting cauterizes the wood and prevents the rough tannins and lactones from negatively impacting the wine. In addition, heavy toasting in just a few barrels helps create subtle flavors of tobacco and chocolate. You will also notice in the photo of the American barrel above that it has Toasted Heads.  The Heads are the ends of the barrels. Almost all American barrels have Toasted Heads and almost no French Oak barrels do.  That is because the flavors and the tannins are more delicate in the French Oak barrels and we can achieve more complex flavors using both toasted and untoasted wood.  You can, however, purchase American barrels with untoasted heads and French barrels with toasted heads. We don't do either.

The Forests.

We make our decision on which barrels to purchase early in the year so we can select French vs American, the level of toast, and the barrel manufacturer (The Cooper). In addition, by ordering early, we can also select the forest from which the wood is sourced. In general, we want wood from different forests and from different Coopers. It is a lot like cooking, you do not want to use only a single spice, we want complex, interesting wines with layers and layers of flavors. So we use a variety of Coopers and specify wood from a variety of forests. For 2011 our French barrels will come from three different areas in France, The Troncais,  and Jupilles are the main forests that we use. However, some wood comes from the Allier department in the center of France which includes the Troncais National Forest in addition to other area. 

Air Aging.

In addition to all of the other decisions, we also often get to select the length of time that the wood is aged prior to the construction of the barrel. Generally the trees are cut and the logs sawed or split into staves. The staves are then stacked crisscrossed on pallets which are placed outside to age in the sun, wind and rain. We specify that the American oak barrels we purchase must all be aged 3 or 4 years, with 4 being preferable.  French Oak is aged for 24-36 months and we generally specify 36 months.

Determining Which Barrels to Use.

Determining which barrels to use is not just guess work and listening to salespeople.  Each year we try a couple of new barrels to see how they will perform with our particular fruit and wines. In general, the differences between French Oak in particular are very subtle. Over the past couple of months we have, together with our  winemaking consultant Kian Tavakoli, tasted every barrel of wine which is aging in our winery.  We have made detailed notes and debated the desirability of  each barrel for each particular wine.  Some barrels work exceptionally well and others, while they may be good barrels from good Coopers, do not add quite the finesse and style that we are after to make world class wines.

Finally, the Selection.

So,  our final selection is based on much more than just whether the barrels are just French or American. In addition we select based on the Cooper (the barrel maker), the level of toast, the toasting of the heads, the length time the staves are air dried, the tightness of the grain of the wood and the forest from which the wood is sourced.

 This year we will use predominantly new barrels which will be almost entirely new French Oak. We are using a significantly higher proportion of French oak than we have in the past. All barrels will be very tight grain and most will be medium plus toast. We have placed orders for French oak barrels from coopers Taransaud, Ana Selection, Sylvain and Ermitage. Our very limited number of American oak barrels will come from Demptos (made right in Napa) and Canton which is owned by Taransaud and located in Kentucky.

Cheers, Peter