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B A R RR L S S A R EE L Spec i a l R eport American Oak at the Source BARRELs Editor's note: To commemorate the 10th annual Barrel Issue of Wines & Vines, staff writer Andrew Adams traveled to Missouri and visited American oak forests to learn about the emerging industry. He found that during the recession, when the construction market collapsed, the demand for white oak staves for barrels kept loggers and mills in business. Read more in this special section. AMERICAN OAK AT THE SOURCE, page 32 BARREL CONSISTENCY AND SEASONING, page 40 BARREL WASHING TO SUIT YOUR PROGRAM, page 47 How Midwestern loggers and saw mills harvest and prepare white oak By Andrew Adams D ale Kirby strides through the forest pushing back tree limbs and stepping over logs and the uneven ground with the nimbleness of someone well experienced in the outdoors. He pauses to survey a large, straight tree with white bark that stands out in stark contrast to other trees and the yellow, gold and red leaves of maples. "Yep, this is a good white oak here," Kirby says, resting his palm on the tree. "You could get four, five barrels out of this tree." Highlights • merican oak for cooperage is sourced A from a vast area of the Midwestern United States. • ost trees grow on private land and M are cut by independent contractors. • typical American white oak tree A measures 13 inches in diameter at 6 feet of its height and has lived 100 years when it's harvested. 32 W in es & V i ne s F E B R UARY 20 14 Kirby is walking his own stand of about 400 acres of timber near a state wildlife conservation area. The ground, covered with emerging trees and decaying timber, is still moist from a morning rainstorm that has also left the still, chilled air of a clear and cold fall day feeling fresh and crisp. "I have walked this forest since I was a kid," Kirby says of the timber that he uses to supply his company, A&K Cooperage located in Higbee, Mo., which is a 45-minute drive north of the college town of Columbia, Mo., in the central part of Missouri. A&K Cooperage is the primary barrel supplier for Silver Oak Cellars, which is based in California's Napa Valley and also owns winemaking facilities in the Alexander Valley of Sonoma County. Silver Oak, which makes 100,000 cases of wine per year, produces a popular, consistent Cabernet Sauvignon that is aged in American oak. The winery was so intent on maintaining a consistent supply of quality oak barrels that it bought a partner stake in the cooperage in 2000. Kirby started the cooperage with his father-in-law D.L. Andrews more than 40 years ago. Today, the company makes about 5,000 barrels per year, with Silver Oak accounting for about half of that production. Kirby's son Matt also works at the cooperage and said the oak business appears to have recovered from the recession. Sales are at the same level if not better than before 2009. "Demand is really good this year," Matt Kirby says. "I don't know what's going on, but we're working our butts off here." Next door to the Kirbys' cooperage is Mid-West Stave Exchange, a stave mill owned by Robert Berendzen. Dale Kirby helped Berendzen set up shop. While the mill has been open for only six months, Kirby says, "People are beating down his door looking for wood." It is well known by winemakers how the quality of American oak barrels vastly improved during the past three decades. "When I first started making wine, American oak was green," says Jeff Cohn, owner Dale Kirby walks on his timber land in central in a typical forest are white oaks, which are