Barrel Bonanza!

One of the biggest thrills as a new winery is the ordering of the barrels and seeing your logo on the end of a barrel when it is delivered.  I know it’s just a small thing, but you just feel a bit more like you have really started making wine.  Our barrels are filled with Merlot and Tempranillo, and for this first year we tried a couple of different barrel types to see which we liked the most for their flavor profile with our wines.  We are looking to create smooth, beautifully layered wine, and we want the oak to add to its sophistication, not be a dominant part of its flavoring.

Wine barrels could be a book of information all by themselves, and it probably is somewhere, but in general you deal with two origin points, the United States and Europe (mostly France).  Then you deal with toasting (for flavor profiles), and time air dried - where generally the longer time the better.  Ok, since you don’t get a “do over” in wine making, and we have some fantastic fruit and a fantastic winemaker, we didn’t want to miss our mark on barrel selection.  So we worked with Barrel Builders, a barrel broker who places barrels for one of the finest cooperages (that’s the place they make barrels) in France, Marchive. 

Each barrel holds about 25 cases of wine, and generally is considered neutral after the 2^nd or 3^rd year of use, meaning it has become more of a container for the wine, rather than having much ability to change the flavoring of the wine.  That kind of stings since you can pay $900 to $1000 for French oaks barrels!?  Perils of perfection I guess.  As we continue to see wines evolve in the barrels, I look forward to talking more about the experiences we are having with American Oak, French Oak, and even Hungarian Oak.

Cheers !



Craig Pinkley

General Manager