Wines & Vines

February 2018 WINES&VINES 43 OAK BARRELS 20 this year, 40 this year,' but the reality is you're getting 20 differ- ent barrels, you're getting 40 dif- ferent barrels, and you're hoping that they are going to be similar to the one that you tasted." Because of that question of consistency, Schweiger said he's considering a small trial on the Vicard Generation 7 barrels that are built with a patented system to determine tannin content in each stave as well as precise toast- ing with the goal to deliver the same barrel profile each vintage. A surprisingly strong performer "The biggest surprise was our con- trol, which was three-year-old barrels, essentially neutral. They actually performed very elo- quently. There was a lot of beauty to be found in the inert wood," he said. "There is still some kind of contribution to be made from that older barrel, and sometimes it may be slow, gentle aeration is overlooked as an important wine- making tool." Eric Herve, Ph.D., a research scientist with ETS who oversaw the analysis for the trial, said another interesting finding was that the control barrels were not as neutral as one would assume. The control barrels exhibited significant amounts of oak lactones—nearly as much as the control line of the trial. Vanillin was about 50% of the average, and there was more than half the control of eugenol. Herve said the neutral barrels were not inert at all but provided a gentle contribution similar to an extremely lightly toasted barrel. "This is actually a common obser- vation in similar trials: Aroma compounds that are the most toast-dependent (furfurals, guaia- cols) virtually disappear after a couple uses," he said in an email to Wines & Vines after the trial. "They are mostly located on the inner surface of the barrel and easily extractable by wine, but the ones already present in untoasted oak keep being extracted much longer, because they are also pres- ent deeper inside the staves." The Gourmet Barrel www.boswellcompany.com • (415) 457-3955 • staff @ boswellcompany.com ECLAT 'gourmet' ECLAT 'gourmet' French barrels are Fr ECLAT 'gourmet' French barrels are rrels ECLAT 'gourmet' French barrels are are the creation of owner Jean-Christophe the creation of owner Jean-Christophe Varron. His 35 years of history and knowledge in the cooperage world led to the innovation of ECLAT. The vision derives from the recognition that new oak barrels should allow the grapes to speak for themselves and help the wine shine. Proprietary ceramic radiant toasting provides uniform cooking deep into the stave wood, caramelizing the wood sugars without smoky characters. ECLAT barrels deliver pure fruit expression to enhance multiple varietals. Use ECLAT on your most important lots to highlight the meticulous work you do in the vineyards to produce the highest quality fruit. For barrel pricing and more information, please contact The Boswell Company at (415) 457-3955 or email staff @ boswellcompany.com. CONTROL BARREL AND REFERENCE n Reference n Control, three-year-old neutral barrel 5-methyl- furfural 4-methyl- guaiacol eugenol + isoeugenol 50% 100% 150% 200% 250% 300% guaiacol furfural vanillin trans-oak lactone cis-oak lactone c l ove sp i c e s m o k e c h a r s w ee t / b utt e rsc o tc h fr e s h o a k / coc o n u t v a n ill a The control in the trial was three-year-old French oak barrels, which were con- sidered neutral, but still had some oak impact that could be discerned in the tasting and seen in the analysis.

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