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Reusing Wine Barrels and Still Getting Top Quality Wines
by Kari Ruel.
Published on March 01, 2012
A revolutionary wine barrel cleaning technology introduced seven years ago to much skepticism is now winning over many winemakers with proof in the bottle. Napans Vic Vasquez and Bob Flook’s company, Barrel Blasting, has cleaned over ten thousand wine barrels with eco-friendly dry ice and now has the data to prove how effective their cleaning process is. They have wine barrels over seven years old that are producing award-winning wines.
The phrase “environmentally friendly” is increasingly becoming the mantra of many winemakers and wineries throughout wine country. According to the Napa Valley Vintners Association more than seventy of its members are now part of the Napa Green Certified Winery Program. A huge source of waste at wineries is the wine barrels. In California alone, a staggering 200,000 handcrafted oak wine barrels made from 200- to 300-year-old trees are discarded by wineries each year, with most being resold as planters or firewood. Barrel Blasting can now claim they have the technology that can rejuvenate wine barrels with dry ice, saving wineries money and improving the cleanliness of their wineries.
Vasquez said he and his partner weren’t sure what to expect when they started their company in 2005, but they knew dry ice had helped other industries and they wanted to develop a technology that would assist wineries.
“We weren’t sure what we were cleaning or what effect it would have on the wine barrels,” admitted Vasquez. ”How would we compare to other barrel cleaning technologies in the market? What we found was the other cleaning systems or chemicals used were getting the barrels wet. Our process would sand away the wet and remove the surface with dry ice. As far as cleaning comparisons, there weren’t any. We were blowing everyone away.”
A typical wine barrel will maintain good flavors for three to four years. After that the flavor goes bad. There is no neutral, according to Vasquez.
“After three or four years the barrel can give off a stagnant flavor from old wet wood known as old cooperage,” he said. “We can truly remove that old wet wood. This gives winemakers a new opportunity to adjust the amount of oak that they want per barrel.”
Vasquez used this example of blending a Chardonnay. A winemaker would like to use ten percent oak when blending a Chardonnay, but a new barrel will have 100% new oak. In order to get the ten percent, a winemaker would have to blend their Chardonnay with nine older barrels with the one new barrel.
“They are putting in the old wet wood mix with the new barrel to make their Chardonnay,” said Vasquez. “With our process we make the barrels neutral, and the winemaker can decide how many staves to add to the barrels to get the exact amount of oak that they desire*—and it can be done in one barrel. Basically we remove the old toast and customize the flavor to the winemaker’s needs, whether they want a neutral barrel or a special amount of oak. We are the only process that removes this old wet wood, and we do it in a sustainable way.
“One winemaker described our process and compared it if a new wine barrel is a perfect ten. Then wine barrels cleaned from our barrel blasting process with the added appropriate amount of oak, they gave our barrels an 8-9, but at one-tenth the price! We are looking at $50 for a standard barrel up, to $100 per barrel with added staves. We expect our customers to get 8-9 years per barrel with our process and still be able to score high. We level the playing field for all the barrels so they are all uniform. Compare that to $700-1,000 for a new barrel.”
“It’s re-exposing the surfaces,” said Mark Lyon, winemaker at Sebastiani Vineyards. “What I like is that it cleans off the tartrates and stains you find in older barrels. It’s like going to the dentist (to have teeth cleaned). You clean out the barrels, and it’s more hygienic.”
“I am convinced that barrel blasting process is the most significant thing to happen to barrel sanitation since ozone,” said Pete Sayre of Stave Works.
Barrel Blasting is a mobile cleaning service. For jobs of forty or more barrels their team will come to a winery site with their truck, food grade compressor, their automated Rajeunir TM machine, and two to three coopers and assistants.
“The owner of Chateau Julien, Bob Brower, told me that in his opinion, the 2010 Private Reserve Chardonnay is the best Chardonnay we’ve done since 1994,” said Bill Anderson, winemaker at Chateau Julien Winery in Carmel. “Of course there are many factors that contributed to that assessment, e.g., good grapes and good care of the juice. But in my mind, the factor that gave the nuanced finishing touch of elegance was Barrel Blasting the barrels used for fermenting and aging the wine. It cleaned the barrels up so the absorption of particles for quick and distinct settling was immediately noticeable. Aromas were clean and the fruit of the wine was able to show through nicely.”
Dry ice blasting is a process in which particles of solid carbon dioxide (dry ice) are propelled at airstream velocities to achieve the impact energy to strip and clean surfaces. Barrels are blasted using dry ice (CO2) with Barrel Blasting’s automated, patent pending RajeunirTM (French for “rejuvenate”) equipment which utilizes an EPA-, USDA- and FDA-approved process. 100% of the CO2 sublimates then dissipates on impact, leaving no chemical residue so there are no off tastes. Tartrate crystals are removed as well as old wine residue, and approximately fifty one-thousandths of an inch of old wood. This exposes fresh toasted wood and increases the surface area of the barrel, so more wine comes in contact with more oak.
“It was warm and all the windows were open, and all of a sudden I started smelling fresh toasted oak. It smelled like new barrels. I stuck my head inside one and it smelled like a freshly-toasted barrel,” said Don Baker, winemaker at Bighorn Cellars, on barrel blasting process at his facility.
Barrel Blasting’s coopers will remove the barrel top and give the barrel a visual and sensory inspection. Removal of the top is the only way to ensure 99% of the barrel has been cleaned and has no contaminated sections. They look for and scrape out any blisters holding old wine that may harbor contaminants, so as not to compromise the next batch of wine.
“If the barrel looks or smells unusually bad, we alert the winemaker of the problem and let him make the final decision of whether to proceed with cleaning or put the questionable barrel aside,” said Vasquez. Once the barrel passes inspection, it proceeds to the blasting process, where it is loaded on the automated Barrel Blasting machine. This is where the inside of the barrel is blasted with a high pressure CO2 gun. The machine is fully adjustable for speed, pressure, and rotation so that each and every barrel and/or job can be custom tailored to the specific winemaker’s desires. The barrel is then hand-blasted to clean the bottom of the barrel and gently clean the croze. The head is also hand-blasted.
The coopers will then reassemble the barrel and make any minor repairs that may be necessary. Finally, the barrels are stamped with Barrel Blasting’s date stamp so that the winemakers can keep track of the year in which the barrels were blasted. It also identifies which end of the barrel was disassembled.
“I was open-minded to this new idea and saw this as an alternative to the high cost of new barrels,” said Steve Reynolds, a former dentist turned winemaker. “What impressed me the most about the process was being able to remove the head of the wine barrel, and having the advantage of inspecting the barrel like never before. That is something you can’t do looking through the bunghole, even with inspection equipment.”
Julie Johnson, owner/winemaker of Tres Sabores, agrees. “It’s important to farm sustainably and organically, and using CO2 to clean the barrels keeps harsh chemicals away from our wines,” said Johnson. “We rotate seventy-five of what I call ‘previously inspired’ barrels a year through our winemaking process. The cleanliness and treatment of these blasted barrels has contributed to our success. Our zinfandel was in the top 100 wines in 2011 at the San Francisco Chronicle using wine from barrels after barrel blasting.”
A typical barrel is used for only three or four years and then is discarded or used for other purposes. Using the Barrel Blasting cleaning method can rejuvenate the barrels for use for many years to come without jeopardizing quality, taste and cleanliness of the wine.
“This is a renewal process that gives extra life to the barrel and adds extra input into the wine,” said Johnson. “I don’t need to source as many new barrels.”
Reynolds concurs. “Every three years, we bring our barrels back through the system,” said Reynolds. “Fifty percent of most of our wines will be from barrels that were blasted. Our ratings have improved and I definitely can give this cleaning process some of the credit. Plus, it has lowered our overall cost of wood and limits the bacteria in the wine.”
“We are proud to hear the successes of our clients and the scores they are getting for their wines after they have been in a barrel-blasted barrel. A number of our clients are getting marks in the nineties and we just had a couple listed in the top 100 in 2011,” said Vasquez. “Our goal is to help wineries save more money, get better taste, keep the contamination issues down and have their scores go up. And we are helping the environment.”
For more information about Barrel Blasting, contact Vic Vasquez at 707.312.9084 or vic@barrelblasting.com
by Kari Ruel.
Published on March 01, 2012
A revolutionary wine barrel cleaning technology introduced seven years ago to much skepticism is now winning over many winemakers with proof in the bottle. Napans Vic Vasquez and Bob Flook’s company, Barrel Blasting, has cleaned over ten thousand wine barrels with eco-friendly dry ice and now has the data to prove how effective their cleaning process is. They have wine barrels over seven years old that are producing award-winning wines.
The phrase “environmentally friendly” is increasingly becoming the mantra of many winemakers and wineries throughout wine country. According to the Napa Valley Vintners Association more than seventy of its members are now part of the Napa Green Certified Winery Program. A huge source of waste at wineries is the wine barrels. In California alone, a staggering 200,000 handcrafted oak wine barrels made from 200- to 300-year-old trees are discarded by wineries each year, with most being resold as planters or firewood. Barrel Blasting can now claim they have the technology that can rejuvenate wine barrels with dry ice, saving wineries money and improving the cleanliness of their wineries.
Vasquez said he and his partner weren’t sure what to expect when they started their company in 2005, but they knew dry ice had helped other industries and they wanted to develop a technology that would assist wineries.
“We weren’t sure what we were cleaning or what effect it would have on the wine barrels,” admitted Vasquez. ”How would we compare to other barrel cleaning technologies in the market? What we found was the other cleaning systems or chemicals used were getting the barrels wet. Our process would sand away the wet and remove the surface with dry ice. As far as cleaning comparisons, there weren’t any. We were blowing everyone away.”
A typical wine barrel will maintain good flavors for three to four years. After that the flavor goes bad. There is no neutral, according to Vasquez.
“After three or four years the barrel can give off a stagnant flavor from old wet wood known as old cooperage,” he said. “We can truly remove that old wet wood. This gives winemakers a new opportunity to adjust the amount of oak that they want per barrel.”
Vasquez used this example of blending a Chardonnay. A winemaker would like to use ten percent oak when blending a Chardonnay, but a new barrel will have 100% new oak. In order to get the ten percent, a winemaker would have to blend their Chardonnay with nine older barrels with the one new barrel.
“They are putting in the old wet wood mix with the new barrel to make their Chardonnay,” said Vasquez. “With our process we make the barrels neutral, and the winemaker can decide how many staves to add to the barrels to get the exact amount of oak that they desire*—and it can be done in one barrel. Basically we remove the old toast and customize the flavor to the winemaker’s needs, whether they want a neutral barrel or a special amount of oak. We are the only process that removes this old wet wood, and we do it in a sustainable way.
“One winemaker described our process and compared it if a new wine barrel is a perfect ten. Then wine barrels cleaned from our barrel blasting process with the added appropriate amount of oak, they gave our barrels an 8-9, but at one-tenth the price! We are looking at $50 for a standard barrel up, to $100 per barrel with added staves. We expect our customers to get 8-9 years per barrel with our process and still be able to score high. We level the playing field for all the barrels so they are all uniform. Compare that to $700-1,000 for a new barrel.”
“It’s re-exposing the surfaces,” said Mark Lyon, winemaker at Sebastiani Vineyards. “What I like is that it cleans off the tartrates and stains you find in older barrels. It’s like going to the dentist (to have teeth cleaned). You clean out the barrels, and it’s more hygienic.”
“I am convinced that barrel blasting process is the most significant thing to happen to barrel sanitation since ozone,” said Pete Sayre of Stave Works.
Barrel Blasting is a mobile cleaning service. For jobs of forty or more barrels their team will come to a winery site with their truck, food grade compressor, their automated Rajeunir TM machine, and two to three coopers and assistants.
“The owner of Chateau Julien, Bob Brower, told me that in his opinion, the 2010 Private Reserve Chardonnay is the best Chardonnay we’ve done since 1994,” said Bill Anderson, winemaker at Chateau Julien Winery in Carmel. “Of course there are many factors that contributed to that assessment, e.g., good grapes and good care of the juice. But in my mind, the factor that gave the nuanced finishing touch of elegance was Barrel Blasting the barrels used for fermenting and aging the wine. It cleaned the barrels up so the absorption of particles for quick and distinct settling was immediately noticeable. Aromas were clean and the fruit of the wine was able to show through nicely.”
Dry ice blasting is a process in which particles of solid carbon dioxide (dry ice) are propelled at airstream velocities to achieve the impact energy to strip and clean surfaces. Barrels are blasted using dry ice (CO2) with Barrel Blasting’s automated, patent pending RajeunirTM (French for “rejuvenate”) equipment which utilizes an EPA-, USDA- and FDA-approved process. 100% of the CO2 sublimates then dissipates on impact, leaving no chemical residue so there are no off tastes. Tartrate crystals are removed as well as old wine residue, and approximately fifty one-thousandths of an inch of old wood. This exposes fresh toasted wood and increases the surface area of the barrel, so more wine comes in contact with more oak.
“It was warm and all the windows were open, and all of a sudden I started smelling fresh toasted oak. It smelled like new barrels. I stuck my head inside one and it smelled like a freshly-toasted barrel,” said Don Baker, winemaker at Bighorn Cellars, on barrel blasting process at his facility.
Barrel Blasting’s coopers will remove the barrel top and give the barrel a visual and sensory inspection. Removal of the top is the only way to ensure 99% of the barrel has been cleaned and has no contaminated sections. They look for and scrape out any blisters holding old wine that may harbor contaminants, so as not to compromise the next batch of wine.
“If the barrel looks or smells unusually bad, we alert the winemaker of the problem and let him make the final decision of whether to proceed with cleaning or put the questionable barrel aside,” said Vasquez. Once the barrel passes inspection, it proceeds to the blasting process, where it is loaded on the automated Barrel Blasting machine. This is where the inside of the barrel is blasted with a high pressure CO2 gun. The machine is fully adjustable for speed, pressure, and rotation so that each and every barrel and/or job can be custom tailored to the specific winemaker’s desires. The barrel is then hand-blasted to clean the bottom of the barrel and gently clean the croze. The head is also hand-blasted.
The coopers will then reassemble the barrel and make any minor repairs that may be necessary. Finally, the barrels are stamped with Barrel Blasting’s date stamp so that the winemakers can keep track of the year in which the barrels were blasted. It also identifies which end of the barrel was disassembled.
“I was open-minded to this new idea and saw this as an alternative to the high cost of new barrels,” said Steve Reynolds, a former dentist turned winemaker. “What impressed me the most about the process was being able to remove the head of the wine barrel, and having the advantage of inspecting the barrel like never before. That is something you can’t do looking through the bunghole, even with inspection equipment.”
Julie Johnson, owner/winemaker of Tres Sabores, agrees. “It’s important to farm sustainably and organically, and using CO2 to clean the barrels keeps harsh chemicals away from our wines,” said Johnson. “We rotate seventy-five of what I call ‘previously inspired’ barrels a year through our winemaking process. The cleanliness and treatment of these blasted barrels has contributed to our success. Our zinfandel was in the top 100 wines in 2011 at the San Francisco Chronicle using wine from barrels after barrel blasting.”
A typical barrel is used for only three or four years and then is discarded or used for other purposes. Using the Barrel Blasting cleaning method can rejuvenate the barrels for use for many years to come without jeopardizing quality, taste and cleanliness of the wine.
“This is a renewal process that gives extra life to the barrel and adds extra input into the wine,” said Johnson. “I don’t need to source as many new barrels.”
Reynolds concurs. “Every three years, we bring our barrels back through the system,” said Reynolds. “Fifty percent of most of our wines will be from barrels that were blasted. Our ratings have improved and I definitely can give this cleaning process some of the credit. Plus, it has lowered our overall cost of wood and limits the bacteria in the wine.”
“We are proud to hear the successes of our clients and the scores they are getting for their wines after they have been in a barrel-blasted barrel. A number of our clients are getting marks in the nineties and we just had a couple listed in the top 100 in 2011,” said Vasquez. “Our goal is to help wineries save more money, get better taste, keep the contamination issues down and have their scores go up. And we are helping the environment.”
For more information about Barrel Blasting, contact Vic Vasquez at 707.312.9084 or vic@barrelblasting.com