Thursday, February 12, 2009

It's Time To Rack The 2008 Wine In Barrels

I thought that it was time to get back and talk about what is going on with the Atlas Peak wines since the New Year.


A quick recap reminds us that at the end of December all of the 2008 Atlas Peak wines had made it to the barrel.



When we returned to work after the New Year the barrels were topped up with more wine in order to replace wine lost to evaporation and simply the volume that soaks into the dry wood of the barrel staves. Remember, Atlas Peak uses 50 % new French Oak, and these barrels are air dried for two to three years. When the barrel is filled for the first time it is very happy to see some liquid and can adsorb an amazing amount of wine.


Topping is important to fill the void in the barrel that is created by this loss of liquid. Reducing this void reduces the chance of a microbial spoilage of the barrel. This is simple, basic, good winemaking practice, and it is an important part of making great wine.

So now that we are all caught up on what has been happening to the barrels since they were last filled, it is time to "Rack" the barrels. This means that we take the wine out of the barrel, wash the barrel, and then return the wine back to the barrel it came from.


For this first racking there will be quite a bit of solids in the bottom of the barrel. The barrel will then be rinsed with hot water, allowed to drip dry, before the wine is returned back to the barrel. For Atlas Peak, I like to return the wine to the same barrel it came from.


Let me explain. There are two ways to go about a barrel racking. The first way is to take a single lot of wine, let's say 16 barrels. Pump all the wine from all the barrels into one tank. Rinse the barrels, and then return all the wine back to the barrels. Since there will be some wine loss the barrel will then need to be topped, usually with wine from another lot. At Atlas Peak, I like to use Petit Verdot.


The other way to do this is called a barrel to barrel racking. This is the way that I like to handle the Atlas Peak barrels. To do this we will start with the same barrel lot that contains 16 barrels, but this time we will also need 16 empty barrels. In this case we will push the wine out of the full barrels using what is called a bulldog pup. This piece of winemaking equipment uses nitrogen gas pressure to push the wine out of the barrel and minimize the pick up of oxygen. It is also a very gentle way of removing the wine from the barrel and leaving as much of the solids in the bottom of the barrel.


The barrel is then washed to remove the solids and sediment that remains inside the barrel. The barrel is allowed to drip dry and then is refilled using the bulldog pup again.




For Atlas Peak wine we will rack our barrels four to five times, by the end of the final racking the wine will be ready to bottle and no filtration will be necessary.


Cheers,


Darren C. Procsal
Winemaker
Atlas Peak

http://www.atlaspeak.com/

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