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38 WINES&VINES February 2017 dump out the solution and add a fresh batch and gas the barrel with sulfur dioxide. The empty barrels get re-gassed every month while they're in storage. Keeping close track of what wine is going into what barrels through the inventory system makes it far easier to determine which barrels may be problematic. The barrel room at King Estate is located beneath the winery and dug into a hillside. While not a true cave, the room does offer many of the same advantages, the most important being a steady average temperature of around 55° F. One section of the barrel room can be warmed to help bar- rels get through malolactic fer- mentation, and once those are finished, the room can be chilled back down for storage. Spetnagel said he's noticed t h e s u m m e r s i n O r e g o n a r e starting to get a little warmer and drier on average. While he hasn't changed how often he tops barrels, he noticed he's using a little more wine. "The rate of topping isn't changing, probably just the rate of evapo- ration has gone up, especially in the summer," he said. Smart Fog, Mee Fog and Micro- Cool are some of the companies that supply fogging and humidity systems. The fog systems will gen- erate ultra-fine mists that evapo- rate into the air without leaving wet spots on barrels or puddles on the floor that can foster the growth of bacteria. Chateau Montelena Napa Valley, Calif. In 2012, the venerable Chateau Montelena winery in Napa Valley undertook a major renovation of its cellar. The upgrades brought in new technology and other im- provements that included the Vin- trace system, which at the time was known as VINX2. Winemaker Matt Crafton said the system now offers an app that enables users to scan barrels with a camera on just about any smart- phone. He said it enables anyone on the winemaking team to scan a barrel and look up its informa- tion without needing to find the one or two scanners used for bar- rel management. "All the informa- tion on the barrel is right there on your phone," he said. The winery typically has be- tween 2,000 and 2,500 barrels at any given time, and most of those are stored in a 25,000-square- foot cave located near the his- t o r i c w i n e r y. D u r i n g t h e renovations, both the cave and cellar received a night-air cooling system. Crafton said when it's not harvest time, a set of fans turns on around 10 p.m. and pulls in air throughout the night as a set of exhaust fans pushes air from the cellar back outside. "We get a significant number of full air exchanges," he said. BARRELS Built into the side of a hill, the barrel room at King Estate Winery near Eugene, Ore., stays at a steady temperature around 55° F.