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Winemaker Inquiring TIM P A T T e RS on Rethinking Barrel Materials from stainless steel or plastic. Wine got along just fine, thankyouverymuch, for several hun- S dred years by relying on clay amphorae—and for another few hundred years relying on barrels of various shapes and sizes. Bot- tles were closed with corks. Period. Now we have a revival of con- crete fermentation tanks, red wines fermented in the barrel and wine packaged in everything from screwcapped bottles to Tetra- Paks. So it's really no surprise that alternative packaging should make further inroads into the realm of barrel aging—especially when the upstart products are infinitely reusable and vastly easier to clean. There's no danger that those atmospheric rows and stacks of barrels are going to disappear, no likelihood that the next fancy winery dinner you go to will feature candlelit tables among the plastic barrels. Stainless and polyethylene can co-exist peacefully with oak, used mainly for specialized purposes, but performing well as role players. Oak-free barrels can't do all the things that oak can do—but then, oak can't do all the things non-oak barrels can do, either. The drum corps Stainless steel has been a major part of the winery cellarscape for sev- eral decades, with tanks and fermentors in every shape, size and con- tarting on page 30 of this issue, Kerry Kirkham sur- veys the ins and outs of using the growing array of oak powders, chips, cubes and staves that can provide some of the flavors and tannins of oak barrels to tank- based wines. But there's another, more radical alterna- tive: Make the barrels themselves not from oak, but Polyethylene containers are long-lasting and easy to clean. Plus, they come in a variety of shapes and sizes. highlights • Barrel alternatives made from stainless steel or polyethylene are becoming standard equipment in modern wineries. • Both materials are easier to clean, reusable for many years and less expensive than oak barrels during the long term. • Stainless barrels and poly containers are used most often for reductive-style white winemaking, but polyethylene can be air- permeable, allowing for more maturation. figuration. Extending the reach of stainless down to standard barrel size—somewhere between 50 and 70 gallons—was a natural devel- opment, especially since metal drums were already a mainstay of other industries. Stainless drums/barrels have been in use in the wine industry for 20 years or so, and they are on the upswing today. Packaging Specialties in Medina, Ohio, for example, sold its first stainless wine barrel in 1996, according to business devel- opment manager Jon Stein. Like many of the producers of bar- rel alternatives, Packaging Specialties is an all-purpose custom packaging outfit and has been at it for 50 years. Since one of the company's claims to fame is developing containers for stor- ing de-commissioned nuclear warheads capable of withstanding a 350-mile-per-hour collision, making a wine barrel wasn't a big challenge. Stein says the company started with a barrel-shaped product but soon realized there was no particular reason, other than traditional aesthetics, for the bulbous middle, which actually made design more complex. Stein says the stainless barrel business has picked up in the past few years, fueled by concerns for reusability and sustainability. Wines & Vines APRiL 2011 51