In a serious definition, we would read something like… The barrel is a wooden container made of curved staves and bound together by hoops. At its two ends, there are circular wooden bottoms. But has it always been like this?
At the beginning…
The first traces of barrels, or rather, of their ancestors, date back to the Assyrians and the Babylonians, around the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC, who used palm-wood trunks, dug and closed by a wooden lid, to store and transport wines and other beverages.
However, these ancestors of barrels were not the only containers used in ancient times for the fermentation and aging of wine! Containers could be completely different in shape and material.
For instance, the ancient Romans used clay amphorae with an elongated shape for wine aging, amphorae on which stamps were applied indicating who the producer was and which wine they contained.
The use of amphorae was so widespread in Roman times that even today we can find hundreds of amphorae on the seabed, testifying to the sea trade in wine. A few days ago, a deposit of intact or fragmented ancient amphorae was discovered at a depth of 40-50 meters in the Calabrian sea, belonging to several transport ships.
But the first real testimony on the production of wine barrels, similar to the current ones, comes from the Roman politician, military and writer Marco Porcio Catone – known as Uticense – who lived between 95 and 46 BC and described how the Celts replaced clay amphorae with barrels made from oakwood.
Subsequently, it was discovered that storing wine in these barrels allowed oxygen to permeate slowly into the wood, enabling the wine to breathe as well as releasing substances that improved the quality of the wine.
Wine barrels construction
How are they constructed?
Firstly, the choice of the right wood is paramount and should be made on the basis of its resistance, porosity, duration over time, and the substances it will release into the wine.
Many types of wood can be used: Walnut, Chestnut, Cherry, Palm, White Fir, Ash… but the best of all is still Oak, especially Durmast, even better if it comes from the Massif Central, in France.
The oakwood to be used must be between 100 and 150 years old and its trunk must be smooth, without knots or branches.
The staves of wine barrels will be obtained from the innermost part of the trunk (the most workable) and must subsequently be left to mature in special or natural ovens in order to reduce the moisture content retained by the wood, without drying it.
Natural drying, i.e. the exposure of the staves to rain and climate change, can last up to 5 years!
Once the seasoning process is over, the staves will be finished, shaped, and toasted (the heating process, as if to “toast” them, over a fire) in order to make them pliable and construct the barrels.
Last step: the hoops around the axes are beaten and the bottoms are placed at its two ends!
Fun fact: barrel VS Barrique
Wine barrels can have different sizes and, therefore, variable capacities. You can find a-couple-of-litre barrels as well as hundreds-litre barrels.
Barriques are small French barrels that can store 225 or 228 litres. The origin of this name comes from the small barrels used during the 1789 French revolution, which were filled with soil to raise “barricades” against the army advance.
Barrels, on the other hand, can hold many more litres than the Barrique!
The barrels of the Azienda Agricola Montioni
The Montionis own 125 225-liter barriques in their cellar, all from France, more precisely from the Troncens area. The type of oak of these barrels is called “fine-grained”, indeed, the staves, from which they are made, are very fine: with a 27 mm diameter!
The internal toasting did not alter the organoleptic properties of the wine, i.e. physical and chemical characteristics of the wine, but was carried out only to micro-oxygenate it.
For instance, our Montioni Montefalco Sagrantino DOCG ages for 24 months exclusively in these French wooden barrels. This is one of the reasons why Montioni Sagrantino is so special and precious!
To make our new wine (which we will soon present to you!), we used Barriques from Adour, a very prestigious production area in France! These barrels are made up of oak staves called “super fine-grained” or 22 mm. The toasting was light, and the assembly of the barrel was carried out after the natural seasoning of the staves lasting 40 months! The new Montioni wine will amaze you!
In the meantime… Have you already tasted all Montioni wines? What is your favourite?
We look forward to seeing you in the next article of Words of Wine… B for Bottle!
2) Aggiungere un cucchiaino di lievito per dolci, quindi amalgamare.
3) Foderare una teglia con carta da forno
4) Fare con l’impasto dei rotolini e poi unire i due estremi di ciascun rotolino per formare una ciambellina.
5) Ripassare la ciambellina nello zucchero, avanti e dietro, poi disporre sulla teglia.
6) Infornare le ciambelline a 190° per 7 minuti
Ed ecco pronte le nostre ciambelline al Sagrantino Passito Montioni!
L’abbinamento che vi consigliamo? Ovviamente un calice di Sagrantino Passito Montioni o, in alternativa, il nostro vino più amato ovvero il Sagrantino di Montefalco DOCG Montioni!
Alla prossima ricetta del blog dell’Azienda Agricola Montioni, Tra Cucina e Cantina!
On occasion, the winemaker may decide to leave them in if the grapes themselves contain less tannin than desired. This is more acceptable if the stems have ‘ripened’ and started to turn brown. If increased skin extraction is desired, a winemaker might choose to crush the grapes after destemming.
Wine is one of the most civilized things in the world and one of the most natural things of the world that has been brought to the greatest perfection, and it offers a greater range for enjoyment and appreciation than, possibly, any other purely sensory thing.
Removal of stems first means no stem tannin can be extracted. In these cases the grapes pass between two rollers which squeeze the grapes enough to separate the skin and pulp, but not so much as to cause excessive shearing or tearing of the skin tissues. In some cases, notably with “delicate” red varietals such as Pinot noir or Syrah, all or part of the grapes might be left uncrushed (called “whole berry”) to encourage the retention of fruity aromas through partial carbonic maceration.
The Grapes
The quality of the grapes determines the quality of the wine more than any other factor. Grape quality is affected by variety as well as weather during the growing season, soil minerals and acidity, time of harvest, and pruning method. The combination of these effects is often referred to as the grape’s terroir.
Grapes are usually harvested from the vineyard from early September until early November in the northern hemisphere, and mid February until early March in the southern hemisphere.
In some cool areas in the southern hemisphere, for example Tasmania, harvesting extends into May. The most common species of wine grape is Vitis Vinifera, which includes nearly all varieties of European origin. The most common species of wine grape is Vitis Vinifera, which includes nearly all varieties of European origin.
Manual harvesting is the hand-picking of grape clusters from the grapevines. In the United States, some grapes are picked into one- or two-ton bins for transport back to the winery. Manual harvesting has the advantage of using knowledgeable labor to not only pick the ripe clusters but also to leave behind the clusters that are not ripe or contain bunch rot or other defects. This can be an effective first line of defense to prevent inferior quality fruit from contaminating a lot or tank of wine.
Destemming is the process of separating stems from the grapes. Depending on the winemaking procedure, this process may be undertaken before crushing with the purpose of lowering the development of tannins and vegetal flavors in the resulting wine. Single berry harvesting, as is done with some German Trockenbeerenauslese, avoids this step altogether with the grapes being individually selected.
Crushing is the process when gently squeezing the berries and breaking the skins to start to liberate the contents of the berries. Destemming is the process of removing the grapes from the rachis (the stem which holds the grapes).
In traditional and smaller-scale wine making, the harvested grapes are sometimes crushed by trampling them barefoot or by the use of inexpensive small scale crushers. These can also destem at the same time. However, in larger wineries, a mechanical crusher/destemmer is used. The decision about destemming is different for red and white wine making. Generally when making white wine the fruit is only crushed, the stems are then placed in the press with the berries. The presence of stems in the mix facilitates pressing by allowing juice to flow past flattened skins.
Katerina Monroe
@katerinam • More Posts by Katerina
Congratulations on the award, it's well deserved! You guys definitely know what you're doing. Looking forward to my next visit to the winery!
