Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/40615
WINERY By Gary Werner, Northwest correspondent Reliable Sources Co o pe rag e s f oc u s on c ont rol to s tave of f var ia bi l i t y t's a truism that wine industry work requires flexibility. In fact, success demands skill at man- aging the unexpected. Produc- ers regularly tackle anomalies in the weather, surges in vineyard pest populations, stuck fermentations and Brettanomyces infections – not to mention dips in the economy and shifting market demands. To per- form in such an unstable context, wineries need as much consistency as they can get from their suppliers. Some goods don't pose a signifi- cant challenge. Capsules and labels are perfectly reproducible at almost any scale. But other products are inherently variable. Consider bar- rels: Oak is a natural material, and no two pieces of wood could ever be exactly the same. That may be another truism, but it's not what winemakers want to hear when they're spending thousands of dol- lars on casks to make wine that is 42 VINEYARD & WINERY MANAGEMENT SEPT - OCT 2011 supposed to be uniform from bottle to bottle, and case to case. Conse- quently, cooperages are working harder than ever to deliver con- sistency – even as their own field faces significant flux. BETTER HANDLING "We build as much control as we can into the entire process," said Jason Stout, the international sales director for Cooperages 1912, rep- resenting World Cooperage. "Grain selection and proper seasoning are obviously very important elements. But the impact of toasting on the final flavors of the wood dwarfs everything else. For example, take two barrels made in the same way from wood sourced and seasoned in the same way. If I toast one for 10 minutes and the other for an hour, (the wines) are not going to taste anything like each other." For that reason, World Coo- perage has developed a complex system of barrel toasting profiles. Winery clients can choose from among 120 finishing options, and each one is reproduced by comput- er-guided toasting times and tem- peratures. "In developing these profiles," said Stout, "we have really come to understand the relationship between toasting techniques – rep- resented graphically by a curve of temperature and time – and the fla- vors they're creating. We've been manipulating these curves recently, and dialing in specific characters that people want while avoiding those things they don't." AT A GLANCE Because oak is a natural material, no two pieces of wood are identical. Cooperages are working to pro- vide consistency from barrel to barrel. Grain tightness has become increasingly important to wine- makers in their barrel selections. While some wineries still seek barrels from specific forests, that is becoming less common. WWW.VWM-ONLINE.COM