Giornale Meritage Newsletter

From Barrel To Glass - What's Happening Now in the Vineyard

There is an air of mystique of walking down the winding stairs into the cavernous confines of rows of finely crafted wooden wine barrels; each offering a feeling of hidden beauty, of flavors and blends and scents of carefully cared for wines.  At this time of year in the Napa area, most of the Chardonnays are being transformed from the barrel to the glass. 

With this in mind, the question arises of why wines are even kept in barrels, barrel-aged for several months, sometimes up to eighteen months or even several years? The reason is to allow the wine to reach additional clarification—even to be given more complex flavors through this patient waiting process. During this extended period of time, no air is allowed to enter the barrels. Some of the flavors can even come from the barrel’s wooden womb (or actually from the chemicals that make up the wood and are taken up into the wine.) To achieve a uniform result in the wine, the winemaker will “blend” the wine from various barrels. In addition, there may be a blending together of different grape varieties to achieve desired characteristics.

Destined to become distinct wines, the different blends are then funneled from the barrels into tanks. Depending on the exact measured mix, one blend becomes a merlot, another a cabernet and so on. This blending process happens before bottling.

Most wineries use a bottling truck. These specialized trucks can process around 2000 to 4000 cases of wine a day. The average speed of the procedure is about 70 bottles a minute, but there are trucks that do go slower for gentler use with fine pinots and chardonnays.

The cost for a winery to obtain its own equipment ranges from $30,000 to upwards of $450,000. Basically, the process is this: The bottles are rinsed with filtered water and injected with CO2 to disperse oxygen or nitrogen. The bottle then goes to the filler which injects the wine and then to the corker where the cork is compressed and pushed into the head of the bottle. It’s about four hours of assembly line processing from barrel to bottle to the cases to be loaded onto flats for shipping. Makes you appreciate that singular toast of wine even more, doesn’t it?

If you ever get the chance to have a “blending wine party” with your friends and sample fine wines straight from the barrel to the glass, there is really nothing quite like it. Can we say it’s a “barrel of fun?” Actually, it really is. Cheers!