# Wine duration in a neutral barrel?



## markb1983 (Apr 20, 2015)

Hello Everyone!

Question for you all! I have almost a neutral barrel thats 23 liters, my question that i have for you is, what is the sweet-spot for time to let it age? I know commercial wineries will let their wines age for 6 month all the way up to 24 months..... However, thats for a 59 gallon barrel..


SO.... any thoughts?


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## stickman (Apr 20, 2015)

There is a good thread on this topic. See below.

http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=17646


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## ibglowin (Apr 20, 2015)

I have 23L Vadai's that are now neutral. I add 3ozs of oak beans to the barrel and leave the wine in for 6 months topping up every 2 weeks.


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## markb1983 (Apr 20, 2015)

Ibglowin, how long would you let it go for? Would a year be overkill? Thanks stickman i searched the site and didnt find anything helpful!


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## ibglowin (Apr 20, 2015)

Sandor (Vadai) used to say you could put a wine in a 23L for a year no problem. I have only gone as far as 8 months. You obviously have to keep the Sulfite levels up. 6 months works very well for me and the wines come out smooth and well integrated. I do the 6 months rotation as I have 4 barrels and I make 8 carboys of wine each year so I can rotate all 8 carboys through in one year and be ready to empty again when crush is through each Fall.


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## markb1983 (Apr 20, 2015)

So was there a difference in 6 to 8 months? Did you notice anything ?


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## ibglowin (Apr 20, 2015)

No noticeable difference that I could discern.


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## markb1983 (Apr 21, 2015)

Do you think a year would be over kill?


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## ibglowin (Apr 21, 2015)

For a 23L Barrel I (personally) think it is. The wine to wood ratio is really high. The oxidation (loss of SO2) is extremely high. You have to be vigilant about your Sulfite levels or your going to open up a lot of possibilities for spoilage organisms. I think the smallest I would go (personally) for a year would be a 40L. If you have nothing else to put into it then you really have no choice unless you want the barrel to sit empty for some period of time. As long as the SO2 levels are kept up the wine will be fine but I don't think your going to turn an OK wine into something stellar just by an additional 6 months in the barrel.


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## JohnT (Apr 21, 2015)

Ditto on what glowing said. As a barrel gets smaller, the effects of barrel aging intensify. 

For a 60 gallon barrel, you could get away with extended aging for say 2 to 5 years. But since your barrel is only 1/10th the size, you would want to age 1/10th the amount of time (about 10 weeks to 6 months).

I would make it a point to check you wine every month. Take the wine out of the barrel at the first signs of oxidation.


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## Boatboy24 (Apr 21, 2015)

I have two. One definitely neutral, and one 99% there. The 99% one is used for kits and I leave them in for 3-4 months. The other is used for wines from grapes and I go 6-7 months on those.


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## sdelli (Apr 21, 2015)

Had to check my records before I could respond.... One of my 7 barrels is a Vadai 23. At 10 months old I put a Petit Verdot in it for 287 days. It is now bottled and is a spectacular tasting wine! Deep, bold, rich.... Of course it took constant work to keep topped and so2 set correctly....When it came out in January I put a batch of 2014 harvest Petit Verdot back in it.... I do not plan on taking it out until the end of the year. I also have 33,41 and 56 liter barrels that run just as long with their wine. Even if I was to rotate them from one barrel to another for added complex they still all see 9 months to a year in a barrel. No problem to date...... All my wines are from grapes if that matters.....


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## stickman (Apr 21, 2015)

Over the years I've had two 30gal oak barrels and currently have 3 - 30gal flextanks in operation; all of the wine is primarily from Sonoma grapes, and so far I haven't seen the need to exceed 12 months of aging, but that's just me. I usually go between 6 and 12 months depending on how tannic the wine is. I like the wine to be somewhere in the middle, aged enough to have oak complexity, but still having enough youthfulness to recover in the bottle with nice aromatics. It's all about the balance of flavor and tannins etc.


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## markb1983 (Apr 22, 2015)

So if you were to oak a wine in a 6 gallon barrel for say one year, what would that equate to in say a commercial barrel time frame?


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## JohnT (Apr 23, 2015)

markb1983 said:


> So if you were to oak a wine in a 6 gallon barrel for say one year, what would that equate to in say a commercial barrel time frame?


 
Roughly the equivalent of 6 years.


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## ibglowin (Apr 23, 2015)

LOL that may be a little on the high side John but your going in the right direction for sure! I was going to say 6 months is like a year in a regular barrel going from my experience of having small barrels and not any large ones. Here is a little "barrel math" that helps to explain things.

*Calculations*

We know that the volume of a cylinder (assuming a barrel is pretty much a cylinder in shape) is expressed as:

*Volume = PI * Radius * Radius * Height*

The area of a cylinder is expressed as:

*Area = 2* PI * Radius* Height*

Where:

The Radius refers to the radius of the barrel.
The Height refers to the height of the barrel
PI = 3.14159265…

Taking the area to volume ratio of our wine barrel we get:

*Area / Volume = 2 * PI * Radius * Height / PI * Radius * Radius * Height
*

Canceling terms, this yields the simple expression:

*Area / Volume = 2 / Radius*

So the surface area to volume relationship is simply two divided by the radius of our wine barrel.

Comparing this relationship for various size wine barrels:

A five gallon wine barrel has a radius of about 6 inches.

A sixty gallon wine barrel has a radius of about 12 inches.

Applying the formula shows that a sixty gallon wine barrel has an area to volume ratio of about half that of a five gallon oak barrel.

So one year in a large barrel is approximately two years in a small barrel.


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## ibglowin (Apr 23, 2015)

I should also mention that this difference is only in the oxidation rate, NOT in the maturation rate for a wine. This is why I may leave a batch in the barrel for 6-7 months but then it goes right back to a glass carboy to finish off the maturation process. You can't hurry quality in a wine. I bottle after 2 years and ease the wines into drinking rotation as they are still coming together even then IMHO. You can bottle after a year (most commercial wineries do this) but generally they hold the wines for an additional year in the cellar before releasing them into the wild. YMMV.


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## sdelli (Apr 23, 2015)

Great calculations! I appreciate the info... Helps support my 6 to 10 month rule depending on the size.


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## sour_grapes (Apr 23, 2015)

ibglowin said:


> *Calculations*
> 
> We know that the volume of a cylinder (assuming a barrel is pretty much a cylinder in shape) is expressed as:
> 
> ...



As far as I am concerned, Mike's way is the "right way" to estimate the importance. Of course, real barrels have heads, which makes a small alteration to Mike's result. (They contribute an additional area of 2*Pi*radius^2.) We can account for this, but it does not change the result much.

Taking this into account, the A/V = 2*(radius + height)/(radius*height). In the example Mike gave, the ratio of the A/V ratios for the 60 vs. 5 gallon barrels is 0.43, instead of 0.5. So carry on.


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## markb1983 (Apr 24, 2015)

um. I went to a public school. you need to break this down barney style.  No in all seriousness, this is the exact formula and equation i was seeking... Its incredibly amazing how much math and science is put into wine making..... How often will you add other oak cubes to a barrel? 

For instance, Take french oak and add it to a hungarian barrel or american oak into a french oak barrel?


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## ibglowin (Apr 24, 2015)

I add 3 oz of oak beans to the barrel then put the wine in. Leave them in for the duration. I usually have time in carboy that I can add more oak into the carboy if the oak level falls below what I want before bottling. When you rack the wine out I shake the barrel to get as many out as I can then rinse with a little H2O and the rest seem to fall out with a little shaking.


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## JohnT (Apr 24, 2015)

Glowin, 

OOOOUCH, I think I just sprained my brain. 

Thanks for doing the math. I have been always taught that 1 week per gallon capacity is a good rule of thumb for maturing wine in a barrel. I have used this rule of thumb and have had great success. 

I wonder if other factors do not come into play a well? Perhaps the ratio of the thickness of the wood to the all over volume? Perhaps the number of slats (or number of butt-joints) the barrel might have over the volume?


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## ibglowin (Apr 24, 2015)

There is a good reason that over time wine makers settled in on the 58 gallon or 220L sized barrel. It simply made the best wine year after year. It allowed the perfect amount of wine to wood ratio. Thus allowing the wine to stay in the barrel for up to two years and not only *slowly* oxidize but also *mature* (polymerize) right in the barrel. Most of the oxygen gets into the wine/barrel between the staves which as we know swell enough to keep the wine in but they are not so tight that O2 can't move in.


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## sdelli (Apr 24, 2015)

JohnT said:


> Glowin,
> 
> OOOOUCH, I think I just sprained my brain.
> 
> ...




Wouldn't this change from a new barrel to a neutral one? Seems like a good rule for a new one....


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## stickman (Apr 24, 2015)

I would say there are differences between neutral and new barrels. It turns out there is quite a bit of oxygen contained in new wood, so a neutral barrel that just had wine removed and a new batch put in doesn't provide the same oxygenation. As Glowin indicated, you still get the oxygen that passes through the wood or between staves, but the oxygen contained in the wood is partially depleted. The addition of new oak cubes not only provides flavor, but also provides the needed oxygen. Some young heavy tannic red wines, particularly mountain fruit, require significant oxygen in the first few months or they may become reductive. I've found that 5 staves (36"x2.5"x.375") are needed for a 30 gallon flextank which is supposed to be oxygen permeable like a 2nd year barrel. Without the staves the wine will go reductive quickly. You can add oxygen any way you like, racking or oak etc., but judgment is needed as lighter style reds don't require as much.


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