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TE CHNOL OG Y Firm uses dry ice to clean barrels of Barrel Blasting by Cryo Clean, said clean- ing with super-cold carbon dioxide removes tartrates, reduces Va and revitalizes a barrel. "We remove that old, wet wood and that old stagnant flavor," he said. Barrel Blasters essentially uses dry ice O crystals in a fashion similar to sand blasting, but it is gentler and non-toxic. The method doesn't employ chemicals, and because the spent dry ice quickly sublimates to CO2 ne firm reconditions barrels with a unique procedure employing dry ice. Vic Vasquez, co-owner and founder to replicate a new barrel. "for sanitation, we beat everybody," he said. "We can truly bring the neutral barrel." he said some clients were seeing Va in the level of 1.11-1.2 grams per liter. By in- corporating dry ice cleaning into their barrel maintenance programs, they've seen those levels drop to .09 g/l and lower. Vasquez said they're not just saving money on barrels but by not having to filter as well. Vasquez charges $50 per barrel and will , there's no secondary waste. Vasquez said his cleaning process brings a barrel about as close to neutral as it can get. Winemakers can then add oak inserts provide on-site service for wineries clean- ing a minimum of 40 barrels. he said the system works best on barrels that have been emptied a few weeks prior to cleaning. he doesn't make any recommendations for how to treat barrels post cleaning but Zealand and from all over the United States have purchased the reconditioned barrels, she said. Adams contended that other firms that shave barrels by hand might leave wine-saturated wood that could lead to off flavors. ReCoop's precision equipment and toasting method leaves little chance of those problems, she said. "We're confi- dent that it's not there." De Loach, with Hook & Ladder Winery, had no complaints about any off flavors from re- toasting reconditioned barrels, saying instead that they conferred "great spice flavors and a brown sugar-like characteristic." Hook & Ladder makes 25,000 cases of wine per year with an average bottle price of $22, according to Wines- VinesDATA. De Loach said he and staff members avoid placing the shaved barrels at a bottom of a stack. An oak barrel thaws after undergoing Barrel Blasting by Cryo Clean's blasting process. said some winemakers choose that mo- ment to rinse with ozone. Vasquez said he's been taking orders from breweries and distilleries looking for reconditioned bar- rels and has high hopes for the future of reusing barrels. "This whole barrel indus- try and resell market, I think, is going to go through the roof." A.A. "They are considered 'thin stave' barrels, so we try to keep them toward the top of any stack in the cellar." —Winemaker Jason De Loach, Hook & Ladder Winery "Once these barrels are reconditioned they are considered 'thin stave' barrels, so we try to keep them toward the top of any stack in the cellar," he said. "Over time we do see these barrels tend to get warped heads before other barrels that have not been reconditioned, but again we try to avoid this by keeping them stacked toward the top end of the barrel stack." De Loach said he's found it important to hydrate the barrels as soon they get back from being shaved to avoid any leaks. "Just making sure they are nice and hydrated, we don't have too many issues with them during harvest," he said. A cooper's concerns Chris Hansen, sales manager for the cooperage Seguin Moreau, said a better method for reducing oak costs is using barrel al- 46 Wines & Vines JULY 2012 ternatives. "Barrel conditioning is usually done by wineries that have different goals and objectives than customers that invest in new barrels," he said. "It's an attempt to get new barrels' flavor at a cheap cost versus buying new barrels." This cheaper method, however, could lead to problems, Han- sen said. He said he discussed the process with Seguin Moreau's master coopers who raised a few points of concern including that shaving can't remove all the saturated wood or previ- ous toasting. "If there is wine or toasting left, then you can get off flavors or burnt characteristics in the wine," he said. "When shaving off wood, you are exposing wood that was not exposed to water and the elements during the stave- seasoning process. You can expose green wood, which when toasted will give you aggressive, green wood flavors." Barrel shaving can also lead to leaks from weakened staves and croze from either shaving too much or through the retoasting process, he added. A modern approach WineSecrets, a Sebastopol firm offering a wide variety of wine production services such as electrodialysis, alcohol removal and filtration, announced earlier this year that it would be offering the Phoenix barrel-restoration system from Australia this summer. President Eric Dahlberg said he became acquainted with the Phoenix system in 2011. "I found it to be compelling, and I went to Australia to view the equipment in operation, and that's what really convinced me this would be pertinent to our customers," he said. Dahlberg added that the Phoenix system is major step forward for the rather old-fashioned business of barrel reconditioning.