Barrels or staves?
Alder's got a good debate going on, over at Vinography, on the use of staves and chips in winemaking instead of aging in oak barrels.
This debate is one I've been thinking a lot about lately as we approach summer and another harvest.
I don't think many winemakers will deny the benefits of a good oaking program. Jeff Cohn (of Rosenblum and JC Cellars) has a great database of different barrels and the qualities they impart over at Wine Business Monthly, that's a pretty good read and illustrates the different flavours and textures different oak can bring to wine.
I had my own lightbulb moments on the subject a couple years ago when I barrel sampled Sasha's 2004 Pinot Noir from three different barrels, all aged about 4 months at that point. One was a new Ramond, the second was a one-year old Francois Frere and the third was something neutral. The Ramond was rich and full while the Francois Frere was much more subtle, silky and sophisticated, and the neutral was, well, neutral. The final blend was outstanding.
This is a great strategy when you're doing three barrel's worth of wine, and can afford to buy a new oak barrel every year. But new barrels are pretty expensive, with French oak coming in around $900 US or $1100 Canadian for each one.
This year I've been thinking of doing a barrel worth of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Merlot from a Vineyard in Niagara-on-the-Lake. If I do this, I'll have to figure out what barrel I should use to age it in.
Sasha has recommended in the past that everyone should start with a Francois Frere barrel as their first, because they make for a good benchmark. But at $1100 or so, that's a hefty investment for the first harvest I'll tackle on my own.
I could always go with America Oak, which would lower the price by half, but I'm not as familiar with American Oak producers and picking a barrel at this point would be taking a shot in the dark. Plus the flavours of American oak tend to be VERY strong, and putting all my wine in brand new oak would definitely be overkill.
Alternately, since I have to buy a stainless steel tank for racking anyway, I could always just age the wine in there along with some staves of French oak for flavour, and sparge it with a little oxygen from time-to-time to aid with mouthfeel. This would reduce my start-up costs by about 50%, but I have a hunch it would also reduce the fun, authenticity and taste by the same amount.
Another viable option is to find an old neutral barrel from a reputable winery, and age the wine in there, along with some new oak staves from good French oak. This method would provide the oxidization benefits of aging in oak, the low-cost of a used barrel, and the oak flavour from the French staves. This could be a good compromise.
The ideal solution, if you're making just one barrel, is one being pioneered in California by CrushPad, a custom-crush company in San Francisco. They've come up with the Zebra-barrel concept, where they take apart old and new barrels, then put them back together again, alternating the staves between the new and used oak. From a flavour standpoint, this method seems to be ideal, but I'm sure it doesn't come cheap.