Page 192 - NEWNORMAL_ANIMATED

NEW NORMAL

Clos de Tsampéhro,Flanthey, Wallis, Switzerland

the barrels themselves were like wheels and without exception - the only kind of wood
could be easily rolled from one resting place used for fine wine storage) barrel impart to
to another; third, it became evident that cer- wine that improves and enhances it? We’ll look
tain goods - like wine - actually benefited from at two ways that wine benefits from its contact
being stored in wood. with oak.
This third advantage forms the basis for the First, for red wines, controlled oxidation
entire modern cooperage industry, and in fact takes place during barrel aging. This very gra-
is the only real reason for its continued exis- dual oxidation results in decreased astringen-
tence in a world where stainless steel and non- cy and increased colour and stability. It also
reactive synthetic materials outweigh all other evolves the fruit aromas to more complex
advantages that barrels ever possessed. ones. Through a program of topping the wine
(filling up the barrel) while it is in the barrel
WHY DO WE STILL USE BARRELS? and racking the wine from barrel to barrel to
If the practice of using wooden barrels for clarify it, just enough oxygen is introduced to
wine storage had not been common throu- the wine to have these beneficial effects over
ghout the long period of years when wooden a period of many months.
barrels were the only practical containers for Second, oak wood is composed of several
wine, it is highly unlikely that today’s vint- classes of complex chemical compounds, each
ners would ever have thought of adding the of which contributes its own flavour or textu-
dimensions of oak flavour to their wines. So ral note to both red and white wines. The most
we may say that it is a happy, historical coinci- familiar of these are vanilla flavours, sweet and
dence that wine and wood marry together to toasty aromas, notes of tea and tobacco and
form a richer, more complex flavour and tex- an overall structural complexity of tannin that
ture than wine would have were it stored in a mingles with the tannin from the fruit itself (in
totally non-reactive container. the case of red wines). The specific compounds
Now, what does an oak (and oak is - almost creating these delightful nuances in the fi-
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