Use of new oak barrels

[Dick Peterson]

25% new oak means that of, say, 1000 gallons of wine fermented, the winemaker put about 250 gallons into new oak barrels and 750 gallons into older, used barrels for aging. After the barrel aging, all the barrels are pumped out into a tank for possible fining, filtering, then bottling. Barrels are often categorized by winemakers as "new," "once used," "twice used" and "old." Each year, as new barrels are added, each group of barrels moves down the line of category hiarchy. "Old" barrels can be three years old or more than twenty. But after about five years of use, no significant amount of oak flavor is picked up by wine from those barrels any more.