steel barrells, oak barrels, what's the taste difference?

[Randy Caparoso]

For high quality wines that benefit from that "rounding off" that wood provides -- like Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and other premium varietals and varietal blends -- such wineries definitely use oak barrels. For wines which are pretty much defined optimally purely through stainless steel fermentation -- like White Zinfandel, and often Riesling, Gewurztraminer and Chenin blanc -- these same wineries would forego the use of wood.

For "mass production," as you put it, it certainly doesn't make sense to do any wine in tiny little "steel barrels." What is used are very large tanks -- something on the order of several thousand gallons in size. The only time little tanks (less than 100 gallons) come in handy is when small batches are made (experiments, or things from new vines, or hand picked "late harvest" wines, etc.).