Bring to Oak Life birth of a Wine Barrel
As long as wine has been traded and transported, there was a need for suitable containers. Looking back several millennia, and we see that clay amphora was the first ship of choice, made waterproof by a coating of resin. When the barrel came to dominate over this old vessel is unknown, but when Caesar's army on the march in Western Europe barrels was really an established method of transporting goods, perhaps built by the Celts. Today, wine quality is generally transported in the bottle, and there are newer and cheaper ways to transport most of the wines in the 21 century. Nevertheless wood barrel, although there is no longer first choice for transporting wine, which still plays an important role in the winemaking process, sometimes in the process of fermentation, but most often during the lift, the period of wood maturation prior to bottling and sales.
For this reason, in spite of the huge and sweeping modernization wine industry observed over the last century Custom barrel is still an important piece of equipment. Production of a barrel by hand is an extremely laborious, skilled and lengthy process. Even today, the process is mechanized to a certain extent, it is still a very labor-intensive one and the end result is close to a masterpiece.
Before barrel manufacturing process correctly, there are two decisions to be made, so the tree can be either split or sawn into sticks, and then the furnace or air-dried. The first decision to saw or split, largely depends on the source of oak. American oak is rich in tyloses which blocks the radial pores, reducing the porosity of wood, and so it can be sawed. With European oak, but the amount of tyloses is much smaller, and the wood is more porous as a result. Thus be suitable for barrel-making tree to be divided along the grain than sawn. There are several consequences of this resolution; first, segregation leads to lower yields of bars from a piece of wood, increased wastage and costs. Secondly, a sawn batons exposes different parts of the wood to the wine than a breakdown would mean, and so its impact on the final taste of wine can be quite different.
Air-drying is generally considered better than oven-drying, but the latter has a clear advantage because it is a much quicker process. Adjacent to Maura cooperage is a gigantic farm yard filled with hundreds of huge piles of wood, of which only one is pictured above. This represents a massive financial investment, as the tree based here for at least three years, sometimes longer. Oven-drying, meanwhile, can be completed in a fraction of the time. Nevertheless, air-drying is generally regarded as superior, especially with regard to the impact of oak tannins on the finished wine. Possible explanations for differences in the finished product, depending on whether it has been dried naturally or in an oven includes variations in the temperature of wood stored outdoors, exposed to rain or its colonization of bacteria and mold, which can leach into the wood, although there is no experimentally derived evidence of any of these theories.
At Maura wood is dried in the air, slowly disappear from golden brown to a silvery gray as the months pass, the soil under the piles of wood turning black with the leaching of tannins. Wood and spends his time stacked in a peculiar way, with rows of bars positioned at an angle like the picture above. The purpose of this method is to improve air circulation around the tree, and to facilitate drying of the stack after the rain.
Although much of the wood is at this point an unknown location, this is not universally true. Already some stacks are earmarked for customers who have been involved in the selection and purchase of raw materials and some bars may be dry for longer than the usual three years under the requirements of the buyer. A well-known Maura client insists on four instead of three years air-drying, and they are willing to pay for it.
Shaping Staves
When sufficient time has elapsed wood is brought into the cooperage for the preparation and assembly, and after three years of riding the patient takes much less than a day of raw magic to be transformed into a shiny new barrel. Firstly, the purified spelling, but also shaped a laborious process when reached by hand using a hatchet-shaped, but today the completion of the machine at a fraction of a minute. The staves are shaped in two ways, hopefully, can be explained by the picture above. Firstly, to facilitate their collection in a round barrel, wood is removed to allow the concave (inner) and convex (outer) surfaces, top and bottom respectively in the picture.
Second, the spell is designed so that the finished cylinder has the desired shape, which is a fatter middle and a slightly thinner top and bottom, as seen on the right. To achieve this, more wood is removed from the top and bottom than from the center of the rod so that the center has a larger circumference (black outline in the picture) than the top and bottom (red outline in the picture). The extensive removal of wood from all four surfaces (somewhat exaggerated in my image, true) means that the spell now has a dramatically changed appearance. Gone is the weathered, silvery-black tree, which was ferried in cooperage of forklifts; these rods now have a healthy, warm, honey-gold appearance.
The spelling must then be processed in a barrel, and the final result must have a standard size rods are not randomly chosen. When I saw an Maura hired a bunch of sticks against a measure whose length corresponds to the circumference of a finished barrel at its thickest, central portion. Then a quick process of putting together, he rejects Sticks and introduces new, until he has a collection to suit the measure, leaving a barrel of the required perimeter once collected. And there should be at least fairly broad poles, one that has the strength to take drilling holes hole. So fast forward to another worker who starts the process of raising the barrel. They are gathered in a circle, held together on top of an iron hoop, until all the rods in place. At this point, but neatly assembled in one end, due to their conical shape, they naturally splay out in the second. It is now that the brilliant work to bring the poles together at the other end without snapping them starts. With sticks in place, held together at one end of an iron hoop, the other ends are now ready to create the barrel shape is so familiar to us all.
The barrel is placed in its final form, thanks to the increased plasticity of oak, when exposed to heat which can dry heat (when the barrels are molded around an open fire), moist heat (steam or even a water bath) or a combination of two. At Maura starts with a hot water bath, as shown on the left. Hidden behind the steam in this picture is a floor-level tax full of scalding hot water that is so deep and wide, to take four barrels; the displayed image is only three, one that has just been removed. The ends of the rods pulled together by the first hanger is basically sticking out of the water at the top is the opposite end, scattered wide, as are the ends to be assembled. When the rods are completely warmed through embryonic barrel is lifted from the VAT and then formed, which today is generally achieved through a cable or metal strap around the open end of the barrel, and then closes the shape by using force, tight strap or cable before spelling meet. If it is done when the wood was cold period can snap, but the result of the heat, they will bend into shape, in Cooper than knocking on another iron ring in this context to keep connected. Maura on the barrels are then placed over an open fire, which helps to dry the wood, but can also be used to toast the inside of the barrel, caramelizing surface sugars in the wood and changing dramatically the flavors that can be communicated to the wine by the barrel. As with the selection and weathering, and degree of roasting will be the customer's needs.
Installation of Head & Finishing
Before the process goes forward, it is necessary to fit the ends of the barrel. For this slot must be cut to take the last piece (or "principal") which is itself made of five or six sticks. These are planed in good condition, and then pressed two times on each side to take two short pieces of doweling. During installation, a single dried Reed, collected from a nearby river plot is located between each pole. In contrast to the barrel itself, which is made waterproof (or should it be tight wine?) Of the enormous pressure on the bars of metal hoops, use your head a little help to achieve a good seal. This is the purpose of pipes which plug any leakage between the poles. Watching Maura an employee between the reeds in position before pressing the next pole into dowels, did much to remind me of an artisan origins of this production, although much of what is now mechanized.
Once a sufficient quantity of timber has been assembled, the circular head is cut out of it and so freshly cut groove. This is achieved by temporarily releasing the final hoop to allow bars to open a small (other hoops, as shown in the image on the right, keep the barrel more or less in shape) and then pulling his head up into place using a special grabbing tool . Once in place at the end replaced tape and the process repeated for the other end of the barrel. At this point the barrel shape is finished and what is still largely is icing on the cake.
Only the barrel is released from its iron hoops, since these are temporary manufacturing steel hoops, which will be recycled, and after a trip to the outside world to ensure a clean and splinter-free finish on almost completions product is equipped with new, shiny hoops are usually made of stainless steel and is forced into place by means of a hydraulic machine, as shown at right. At this point, it is likely that the barrel will be tested by drilling in and fill the barrel with water under pressure. A leak is a disappointment, rather than a disaster, because the expected value of the finished product, which is significant, a leaky spelling not condemn barrel for destruction, but rather the replacement of malefactor rod or rods. After retesting, see some additional barrel finishing. The hollow hole is drilled out and then cauterised use heat, as shown in the picture below.
And finally, the barrel is marked up, sometimes with the name of the cooperage, but Maura also marks the barrels with the name or logo for the client on the day you have visited a number of barrels of Marques de Murrieta was finished. Of all the processes, you saw that day was perhaps the most surprising. Naively I had expected to see a heated brand is used on wood, but the procedure proved to be a higher technological level than this, since the required logo is burned on the head of the barrel using a laser. Laser Scanner upwards rather as a laser can burn the image into the wood of the barrel head, slowing construction of the images or words, line by line. where the laser is nearly reached the top of letters. Hint of smoke from the smoldering wood, danced over the stage as you have photographed it.
Once this is done barrel is finished. It is the first shrink-wrapped in protective plastic and then moved to a protected holding area, ready for shipment.
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