Wood Barrels Part 1

Welcome to Vine to Wine, this is your host Linda Moran. Wooden Barrels have for centuries been the storage vessel of choice for wine. Today we will begin a three part series about wooden barrels and their place in wine making.

The art of creating wooden containers to store liquids, and wine specifically, goes way back to the Egyptians. However, the level of technology severely limited the construction of vessels and containers in a shape adequate to transport wine let alone effectively store it. For many years clay ceramics were used to make wine vessels. It wasn’t until the Romans began developing the techniques we now know as cooperage that this changed.  However after the fall of the Roman Empire this beginning knowledge was not revisited until the Middle Ages when interest in wine was once again becoming popular. As there were numerous choices of wood to make barrels there was a good deal of experimenting taking place.  But in the end it was narrowed down to chestnut and oak for wine, with oak eventually winning out as it was very dense, meaning it didn’t leak, and in addition it contributed desirable qualities to the wine. However, not just any oak will do. Out of the over 250 types of oak only three are sought after as wood to produce high quality wine barrels.  And although French oak is popular now there was a time during the nineteenth and twentieth century when even the French were using barrels made from Slavonian Oak. Join me tomorrow as we continue our research into the wood barrel, and thank you for joining me on today’s Vine to Wine.