Right now, almost all of our barrels are full of wine. The 2008 vintage will remain in barrel until it is bottled in early January, which will free up those barrels for the 2010 harvest. We do keep a couple of empty barrels for racking the wines (the process of moving the wine from one barrel to another while leaving behind any sediment). Storing dry barrels is marginally more complicated than keeping them filled with wine.

Lighting the sulfur wick

First, as the barrel dries out, the staves shrink slightly, causing leaks. Dry barrels therefore need to be filled with water for a couple of hours before being filled with wine, to allow the staves to expand and thereby seal the leaks. Second, the cracks between the staves provide an ideal environment for mold and bacteria to grow, which, if allowed, would introduce off flavors into the wine. To prevent such contamination, we burn sulfur inside the dry barrel. A barrel that has just been emptied is first rinsed thoroughly and then left to dry out for a day or two. The sulfur wick (actually more of a tablet) is placed on a special bung and lit, and the bung is then inserted into the barrel. After about fifteen minutes, the bung is replaced with a normal bung, sealing the sulfur dioxide inside. Empty barrels need to be suflured once a month.