Editor’s Letter

Dear Members,

Inspiration for the article on barrels was twofold. This coming August our Annual Tasting will feature Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet varietals. The role of the wine barrel in making wine in general, Cabernet in particular, and Cabernet at the Paris Tasting of 1976 especially, called for exploration. And last September, on a visit to Benessere, we observed its then winemaker and general manager, Chris Deardon, reading the head of a barrel with the same focus of attention and interest one gives a wine label or title page of a book. We wanted to be able to read a barrel that way, too.

Barrel is understood to mean a wine barrel in Napa Valley. No one says, “wine barrel,” just “barrel.” Empty, one weighs about one hundred pounds, holds sixty gallons, and can be rolled on its edge, or chime, quite easily from place to place. At rest on its side, the curve of a wine barrel allows collection of clean wine through the bunghole with a thief, leaving lees and leesy wine undisturbed. Traditional French chestnut hoops (chestnut trees are constantly pollarded in order to provide a crop of wands) fastened with willow are thicker than modern galvanized steel hoops and protect tender barrel ends as barrels are rolled and positioned. These hoops also protect chateaux winery floors from scuffing and scarring.

The wine barrel is in no way interchangeable with other kinds of barrels. It is uniquely fashioned by hand for the express purpose of holding wine, which it does with remarkable and altogether satisfactory consequences. We hope you enjoy a glimpse into its assembly and use in Napa Valley that a handful of interviews provide in the following pages. The kinds of barrels for going over Niagara Falls or clowning around bucking broncs, or to fill with laughs or the body of a late grand uncle are for another article. (We do, however, touch upon whiskey barrels, which we think contained the aforementioned daredevils, comics, and cadaver.) As important as wine barrels are to winemaking in Napa Valley, their widespread use is a recent phenomenon with a history barely twenty-five years old.

Diana H. Stockton, Editor