WTN: Two With Dinner...(short/boring)

Needed something to go w/ the leftovers (balsamic-glazed duck breast risotto w/ burratta....just something I happened to find in my fridge that didn't have any stuff growing on it yet) so did a little archeology work and came up with:
1. KenWrightCllrs WashState Chard CeliloVnyd (TW; 12 yr old vines) 1994:
Med.gold slightly burnished bronze color much like the left breast on the bronze Aphrodite sculpture where people had been feeling her up and rubbed away some of the bronze; very strong tobaccoy/charred oak/slight oxidized earthy/toasted hazelnuts/caramel complex nose; tart bit oxidized/hazelnutty some toasty/pungent/charred/oak earthy complex/creme brulee flavor; very long hazelnutty/tobaccoy/charred/toasty/oak creme brulee complex finish; a lovely example of old Chard that's still a pleasure to drink. $21.00
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2. Greene&Red Vnyd NapaVlly Zin (ChilesMillVnyd; Unfltrd; 7 acres planted in 1972; 13.8%) 1994: Dark color w/ some bricking; rather pencilly/cedary/Old Zin tobaccoy slight herbal/earthy little fruit bit tired nose; soft rather herbal/Cab-like/tea somewhat cedary/pencilly/old Zin bit dried out/tired flavor; med.long bit tannic/astringent/dried out some herbal/old Cab-like peppery/tea pencilly/cedary/old Zin finish; interesting old-Zin nose but a bit tired on the palate. $16.00
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And a wee BloodyPulpit:
1. The KenWright was a very good example of an old Chard that had aged quite well. Often, when Chards are hit w/ this much oak, they become much more oxidative in character with age. I would guess this was slammed w/ brand-new Fr.oak but only barrel-frmted and aged briefly in new oak. Plus it probably had a good healthy acidity in its youth that carried it out nearly 15 yrs. It actually was pretty tasty and enjoyable, despite all the oak and slight oxidative character.
Tom

[David M. Bueker]

It's hard to believe that those are now 15 year old wines. Somehow if you go back to the year 2000 a 1985 wine seemed a lot older.

Time flies like an arrow...

2. Greene&Red Vnyd NapaVlly Zin (ChilesMillVnyd; Unfltrd; 7 acres planted in 1972; 13.8%) 1994: Dark color w/ some bricking; rather pencilly/cedary/Old Zin tobaccoy slight herbal/earthy little fruit bit tired nose; soft rather herbal/Cab-like/tea somewhat cedary/pencilly/old Zin bit dried out/tired flavor; med.long bit tannic/astringent/dried out some herbal/old Cab-like peppery/tea pencilly/cedary/old Zin finish; interesting old-Zin nose but a bit tired on the palate. $16.00

I use to really love the Green and Red from the early 1990's. But then they went the way of lots of other zins did in the late 1990's. Started increasing the alcohol and the price so that both were out of my comfort zone. I miss the days of 13.8% alcohol and $16.00 price tags. Sigh

Not aware of any correlation between oak and oxidation...

[David M. Bueker]

Not aware of any correlation between oak and oxidation...

The longer a wine is in barrel the more oxygen it is exposed to (versus a sealed stainless vessel). Oak is porous.

Not aware of any correlation between oak and oxidation...

The longer a wine is in barrel the more oxygen it is exposed to (versus a sealed stainless vessel). Oak is porous.

What I meant was that, once in the bottle, there should be no correlation between the rate of oxidation and whether or not it saw oak.

But I hear you saying that if a wine sees more air before it was bottled, it will be "further along" at the time of bottling, and will therefore oxidise sooner in the bottle than one that saw less air (other things equal). That makes sense, though perhaps less so if the winemaker tops up the barrels as wine evaporates (and wines stored in stainless steel could be subjected to micro-oxigenation).

Incidentally, a winemaker recently told me that after a barrel is used three times (+/-), all the pores become sealed, so that function would cease at that point. I wonder now much this is true (if anyone knows, please chime in). If it is, vin jaune would always have to use fresh barrels...

This also makes me understand why "natural " winemakers, who use little or no SO2, shy heavily away from ageing in oak, which would shorten the already shorter lives of their wines.

Incidentally, a winemaker recently told me that after a barrel is used three times (+/-), all the pores become sealed, so that function would cease at that point. I wonder now much this is true (if anyone knows, please chime in). If it is, vin jaune would always have to use fresh barrels...

Doesn't vin jaune go into barrels/casks that aren't filled to the rim, which is to say there is air/oxygen inside the barrel/cask itself so it doesn't need to permeate the wood from outside?

Incidentally, a winemaker recently told me that after a barrel is used three times (+/-), all the pores become sealed, so that function would cease at that point. I wonder now much this is true (if anyone knows, please chime in). If it is, vin jaune would always have to use fresh barrels...

Doesn't vin jaune go into barrels/casks that aren't filled to the rim, which is to say there is air/oxygen inside the barrel/cask itself so it doesn't need to permeate the wood from outside?

Thank you, that makes sense! But I'd still like to hear, if anyone knows, whether the rest of the statement is true...

Incidentally, a winemaker recently told me that after a barrel is used three times (+/-), all the pores become sealed, so that function would cease at that point. I wonder now much this is true (if anyone knows, please chime in).

Was any more detail mentioned as to how this happened? I worked at a winery for a short period of time that had barrels which had been used multiple times and we were still topping them up which seems to indicate that they were not airtight. I would assume that how one treats the barrel between uses could significatly impact the ultimate change in porosity.

According to Margalit http://bookstore.ucdavis.edu/Display.cfm?itemId=1063 air does not ingress through the barrel from the outside. He states that the oxidation that takes place while the wine rests in barrels comes from the topping up and racking processes. He also sites studies that show that what wine which is lost during barrel aging is significantly impacted by the cellar conditions (temp and humidity) with the greatest losses occuring in cellars with lower RH and wider temperature swings. Cellars that have higher RH and more stable temperatures show significantly less wine loss during barrel aging.

Thanks, Brian, I wrote to my source asking for clarification.

If Margalit is correct, the tables would be turned, and rather than explain why air exchange ceases after a few uses, it would be a matter of showing that it does happen in the first few uses...

From a purely logical point of view, the statement "air does not ingress through the barrel from the outside ... oxidation that takes place while the wine rests in barrels comes from the topping up and racking processes" seems to beg the question if there is no ingress, then there is also no egress, so why is topping up ever necessary?

If the barrels were, indeed, airtight, RH and temperature would not affect the amount of liquid, unless I am missing something.

if there is no ingress, then there is also no egress, so why is topping up ever necessary?

I am having problem with this concept also. Essentially he is saying that the barrel acts as a cell membrane allowing wine to be absorbed into wood with eventually working its way through. The argument seems to be that of difusion across a semi-permeable membrane where the moisture wants to move from the high concentration of the wine barrel to the low concentration of the cellar and this would be supported by the humidity correlations. However, the only support that it works this way is an observation that barrels often pull a vacuum.