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winemaker81, I use oak staves in a stainless steel keg tied off with fishing line. The fishing line can be cleaned and I usually dunk it in a kmeta solution as well. Seems to work well.

Cool. That seems to be a good way to go for a serious home winemaker. It’s probably too early to tell if you taste any benefit from the micro oxygenation on the wine?

Thank you for the helpful responses. I’m leaning toward making it neutral with citric and kmeta just before I need it next year and that way I can leave the new Syrah in it for the full eleven months or so.

I thought about that. Might be the way to go. Thanks.

Great (and a bit intimidating) information. Thanks.

I’ve been making wine for many years but have never taken the plunge into barrels. I’m considering buying a 20 gallon French oak barrel from ReCoop in Sonoma. They basically plane off a 1/4 inch off the staves from used barrels to create reconditioned ones. My primary interest in barrels is...

I’m glad you had a good experience with CCHVA. It makes me reconsider working with them next year. Thanks for the information.

I love the concept behind the CCHVA co-op. In fact I joined it in 2008 but had a horrible experience. Our Lucas & Lewellen Syrah was picked in the afternoon and came in at 30 Brix! I decided never to go through that again. This year we got 350 lbs of White Hawk Syrah that was picked at night...

After a recent trip to Los Olivos, I'm thinking about obtaining commercial-vineyard Syrah from Santa Barbara County next year. The likely minimum from a commercial vineyard is one ton, which is too much for me. I'm wondering if there are other home winemakers in SoCal who would be interested in...