The new barrel
We are doing ~250L of syrah this year. We have a 3 year old 50L French Oak barrel, and a 2 year old 55L French Oak barrel. These are getting a bit old, and we won’t get all that much oak from them, plus that is nowhere near enough capacity.
So we decided to buy a new 110L French oak barrel. We bought it from Tonnellerie Radoux, a French cooperage with a US subsidiary based here in Santa Rosa. You can see it in the back of the other containers in this picture:
The cooperage is not what I expected…at least not up front. They are way back in an airport business park. Looks like just another office building, except for the barrel outside the front door. Even inside, the customer space looks like an office, but with lots of barrel samples and posters and artwork. But you can hear the saws going behind one of the doors. And if you peek through the door, you see where they are made. Quite something, and would be a great tour.
Our barrel is French oak, with a tight grain, and a medium+ toast. The tight grain means that it is much slower to release it’s tannins and oak flavors into the wine. It really is meant for reds that will be aged for 12-24 months, which is what we are planning. If we get too much oak, we can swap out the wine that is in the older barrels.
The medium+ toast will give us “The apex of aromatic potential with a rich and complex sensorial contribution (pronounced vanilla, sweet chocolate, maple syrup, lactones and spice). Tannin potential is reduced but still present.”
There you have it in Radoux’s own marketing words…the apex of aromatic potential!