Wine kits and oak barrels

[Wade308]

I'm wanting to purchase my first oak barrel in the new year and have a couple questions I'm hoping someone can answer regarding using it with wine kits.

I currently have a Sangiovese bulk aging in a carboy. I started this kit before I decided I wanted a barrel, so I used oak chips (in the secondary) per instructions. I also followed all the degassing and clarifying steps. Should I even bother barreling this one?

Also, I have a Malbec/Shiraz going in the primary, that I have not added the oak powder or chips to. This one I plan to barrel after bulk aging for about a year. Should I forego the clarifying (Chitosan) since I'll be bulk and barrel aging, or does it matter? Any other kit tweaks I should know when using a barrel?

As I understand it bulk aging clears and degasses the wine, but also the first couple of times you use a (new) barrel the wines will oak rather quickly. So just trying to map this all out and hopefully not ruin anything in the process.

My basic plan is bulking in carboys for about a year, then barreling for a couple weeks (longer as the barrel starts to neutral) and then bottling.

Thanks for any advice!
-Wade

 

[Yooper]

I don't use a barrel, but for kits I never use the finings. I have a "thing" about non-vegetarian ingredients in my wine so I don't use them. My wine is clear and it works great. If I bulk age a kit, I skip degassing as well as time will degas the wine just fine usually.

 

[WilliamSlayer]

Skip the sangiovese, go to the malbec. Unless you like super oaky Italian reds. There is noth ing wrong with barrel aging a kit wine, and you are right aboyt keeping the time in the barrel short the first few times around. Your plans sound well thought out. Just have something ready to top it off AND have another wine ready to add to the barrel as you take one out.

Oh and +1 to Yoopers advise on clarfying.

 

[rawlus]

How big is the barrel and what type of oak?
Once you start a barrel you sort of want to keep it full with wine so you may want to start some other reds that can take oak now so you'll have then in deck. If it's a smaller barrel... Like for a 6gal kit, it will oak the first wines very rapidly... In a matter of several weeks even. Many will start a new barrel with a barrel ferment of Chardonnay to quickly and efficiently strip the first level of oaking so you can let the reds sit a bit longer and benefit from the micro oxidation and evaporative concentration that a barrel provides.

 

[rawlus]

I would agree, if you are bulk aging reds, don't fine or filter. Not needed and more authentic leaving it out.

 

[Wade308]

Thanks all.

It will be a small (5.3 gal) Vadai barrel most likely, and I do plan to have several kits racked up so I can keep it wet.

I'll look into the barrel fermented chard, but I don't drink whites, so it might be a waste.

 

[pumpkinman2012]

WilliamSlayer,
No disrespect, but I lived in Tuscany and had the fortune of helping to make Sangiovese and Chianti, and I must respectfully disagree with you about Sangiovese being a Super oaked wine, unless the wine maker decides to make it a super oaked wine, a real Sangiovese is a very mild wine. Once you decide to age it for a few years in barrel, then you get a Chianti, which still isn't supposed to be super oaked, aged a few more yrs and you get a Brunello style wine. All of these wines can be tannic, but not super oaked, you may be confusing tannic and oaked.

Wade, get the barrel, you will be pleasantly surprised to see what an improvement it will make, just be sure to maintain your SO2 levels.

 

[rawlus]

Pumpkinman - I think William was suggesting to the OP to skip the Italian wines for a new oak barrel as it would make his wine too oaky very quickly, not that Italian wines are too oaky in general.

Which is essentially the same thing I suggested. Chose wines that can take a lot of oak as your first wines in the barrel. Cabernet being one to look at.

 

[WilliamSlayer]

In fact the original poster had mentioned that he had already put Oak chips into the Sangiovese kit he had done. Thus I did not want him to "double oak" a wine that (just as pumpkinman said, that style is mild) does not need it. The OP also metioned that he had not added any oak to the malbec in his fermentor, so I felt (and still feel) it would be a good candidate for that first wine into his barrel.

Hope that clears up and misunderstanding!

 

[pumpkinman2012]

My apologies, I misunderstood. Can you tell that I have a weak spot in my heart for Italian reds?

 

[WilliamSlayer]

Lol, so does my family! I have a constant supply of sangiovese running as the 'house red' for family get togethers.