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BARRELS Barrels To Suit Your Wine Style Customizing oak origin, stave thickness and grain, toast profile and more By Andrew Adams I 38 W in es & V i ne s F E B R UA RY 20 13 Highlights • echnology gives winemakers greater inT sights into grain tightness and can help them tinker with hybrid barrel design. • ome cooperage techniques such as S bousinage are used for custom toasts. • f you can think of it, a cooper can probI ably provide it for you. Roberts said it doesn't matter if a client wants two or 200 barrels, he's more than happy to discuss building the right barrel or experimenting with a variety of oak types to assembly their spice rack of barrels. Oak blends for your blended wines Tonnellerie Ô offers a range of hybrid barrels as well, according to Roberts. Whereas it was common to offer French oak with American heads or a 50-50 mix on stave wood, Roberts says he can provide a blend of different American oaks or of French oak from different forests. While the wood is all assembled the same way, Roberts said French and American tend to react differently to flame, so a hybrid barrel offers not just a blend of wood but a slight variation of toast levels as well. "They do toast differently. That's one of the interesting things." Roberts says Tonnellerie Ô also has access to the Cork Supply lab, which provides analysis about what the barrels add to the wine to help determine if a custom program is hitting the right notes. PAUL ROBIN t's not just the wood, toast and shape; coopers today offer a wide variety of custom touches that go beyond laser etching a winery's logo on the barrelhead or wicker hoops. In fact, most cooperage representatives tell Wines & Vines that almost every barrel order they fill is custom tailored to the needs of their clients. Quinn Roberts, the master cooper of Tonnellerie Ô, says he looks forward to working with clients to get exactly what they want in a barrel. "We're always open to new ideas," he says. "If it's physically doable and we have the necessary materials, we're willing to satisfy the customers' demands." Winemakers frequently come in with their own suggestions for tweaking barrels. Roberts says people usually start adjusting toasts first. Custom toasting ranges from short, high-intensity "flash" toasts that are popular for thin-stave barrels to slower, longer toasts at lower temperatures. "In terms of toasting, that pretty much covers the gamut," he says. Another option is placing a barrel on a special stand with rollers so that Roberts can rotate the barrel while toasting it. He says that improved air draw helps the fire maintain a higher intensity and creates a convection effect. The method produces a toast that's not as deep and helps him toast larger format barrels without charring them. The cooperage also offers its sous l-eau stave treatment, which is an additional water soak of 12 to 18 hours to extract some of the harsher tannins from the wood. Roberts says the treatment helps the barrel elevate fruit flavors while adding "creaminess" with subtle oak notes. "It seems to be a real popular choice for both red and white—and Chardonnay in particular," he says. Adjusting the time and temperature of barrel toasting is the most common way coopers work with their clients to customize barrels.