 Bottles to Barrels:
On Wine and How to Keep It
By Glenn Robert Uhlmann
With Regard to the Bottle
Wine has been an important part of human life since man first
discovered how to make this gift from nature over 6,000 years ago.
How to store it and move it in containers was one of the early
people’s first problems with their wine, oil, and other fluids.
Archeologists and historians have discovered in their researches
all over the world that the earliest vessels used to store wine were
jars made of terracotta that were lined probably with pitch. Much of
the researchers’ published material was gleaned from sunken Roman
ships in the Mediterranean. Many of the resurrected containers were
of the amphora style, with two handles. Recovered pieces were of
many different styles and types, suggesting multiple manufactures.
Records indicate that other containers were made of animal skins.
This practice continued into the 18th century, when cork was found
to be successful in stopping bottles for long storage.
From these early receptacles to today’s modern familiar glass
wine bottle, a great number of stages and improvements in
development are covered. Present-day factories manufacture many
millions of bottles daily. They are produced in a multitude of
colors, which can be induced by the addition of various metals to
the materials used to make the glass. Many types and shapes are
produced by using various techniques and moulds.
Its Shape
Shapes of bottles other than the usual round configuration had been
performed by glass blowers for centuries. Early English glass
blowers used boards and moulds to achieve squared shapes .The shape
of the common wine bottle is attractive, but some bottle makers feel
that a long-necked bottle is more pleasing to look at. Winemakers
are choosy about the shape of the bottle that they use for their
wine, and their choice is often influenced by custom.
Its Color
Winemakers have different reasons for choosing bottles of a color to
suit the wind that they produce. Most choices are made to satisfy
tradition. Bordeaux usually appears in dark green. A light green is
used for dry white wine. Amber is the usual choice for Rhine wine.
Burgundy and wine from the Rhône area are also bottled in a
dark-green bottle. Mosel can be found in either green or amber.
More on Its Shape
Port, Sherry, and Bordeaux wines most often come in bottles with
straight sides and high shoulders with a strong punt at the bottom
end of the bottle. The punt is an inward formation from the end
toward the inside of the bottle. The punt is necessary to strengthen
bottles that contain effervescent wines, such as Champagne and
sparkling wines. It is also often used on regular wine bottles as a
symbol of old glass-blowing techniques.
Burgundy wine and wine from the Rhône area usually are sold in
tall bottles with a less prominent punt. Alsace, Rhine, and Mosel
also come in tall bottles with a shallow punt or none at all.
Champagne bottles have a distinguished heavy shape with thick walls
and a deep punt that is necessary to withstand the gas pressure that
is characteristic in Champagne and sparkling wine bottles.
Its Size
Prior to 1970, when the U.S. decided to adopt the metric system, the
common size in the U.S. liquid containers was based on the gallon.
Wine and liquor bottles were produced in the popular “fifth” size.
Some beverages came in 1/2- and 1-gallon sizes. When bottle makers
were approached with changing their bottle sizes to the metric
system, they noticed that the metric liter was slightly larger than
a “fifth.” When the compared the volume of the 26 oz. “fifth” to a
slightly smaller .75 liter of 25.4 oz., they opted to use the
.75-liter size. By changing the price very little, they could gain
by putting a little less in the bottle.
Punts & Gas
The gas that develops in the fermenting process of Champagne and
sparkling wine is what creates the bubbles that we see and
appreciate when the wine is poured. The punt also serves as a
deposit area for yeast to settle on, to suit some winemakers’ method
of manufacture.
More on Its Size
A standard wine bottle holds .75 liters, and a Champagne bottle
holds about 3 centiliters (cl) more than a wine bottle. (Three cl is
approx-imately 4 oz.) Champagne is also available in a magnum size
of 1 1/2 liters. It is also bottled in very small quarter-liter
bottles, very large 18-liter bottles, and several sizes in between.
These bottles are punted to increase the strength of the bottle.
The Cork
A bottle of wine is not complete without a cork. The cork stopper
that is in common use today first came into use in England in about
1700. Until then, the French plugged their bottles with oil-soaked
rags. Vintners in other countries probably used similar methods.
Today’s more popular stoppers are made from the bark of the cork oak
tree. It is grown mostly in Portugal, which produces 160,000 tons of
cork every year. Spain is the next highest producer, followed by
Algeria, Italy, Morocco, Tunisia, and Greece.
Harvesting the bark can be done only about every 10 years,
because it takes that long for the tree to grow a new layer of bark
that is thick enough to make corks. This makes the bark more scarce
and, therefore, more valuable. The bark is elastic and contains oils
and Saberin, which is a waxy substance. These features make it
particularly suitable for wine-bottle stoppers. Because solid cork
is so expensive, some cork companies have ground up the excess from
solid cork sheets that were used to make regular corks and mixed
this with epoxy to form a dense material that has a lot of cork
characteristics and can be shaped to form a less expensive stopper.
Synthetic stoppers are made from plastic compounds. They are much
used for less expensive wines and are satisfactory, in most cases.
One disadvantage is that they are more difficult to remove from the
bottle.
Another method of stopping bottles has been developed. The new
stopper is made of glass or plastic and has an “o” ring on the outer
surface of its neck that makes a perfect seal between outside air
and the wine in the bottle. These are expensive, and this fact makes
their use limited.
Other Stoppers
Screw caps, also known as Stelvin caps, are becoming more and more
popular. They have proven very effective in sealing out air from the
wine in the bottle. However, they are looked down on as being
intended for “cheap” wines.
An added feature to the cork end of the bottle is the capsule,
which is used as an extra precaution to protect the cork. They had
been made of lead for many years until 1993, when lead was
recognized as a health hazard, and now they are made of aluminum or
tin. However, another reason for eliminating the end foil was that
the capsule-free bottle was more attractive and was thought to sell
more wine.
Crown caps are made of cork and are used in making Champagne
during the fermentation process. They are usually replaced by a
regular cork when the wine is distributed. The term “crown cap”
applies also to the metal cap that is installed by crimping it over
a lip on the end of the bottle. These are found mainly on beer and
beverage bottles.
The obvious problem with an unopened bottle is removing the cork.
Without the proper tool, this is not a simple job. The cork cannot
be dug out with a knife or pulled out with a pair of pliers. The
search for a cork extractor has gone on for thousands of years.
Today, there are hundreds of solutions to this problem—most of which
involve the use of a helix-shaped device that is twisted into the
cork, so that it can be pulled out. The best helix shape is hollow,
with no stem in the middle. There are innumerable designs for
pullers that use this principle. Some makers of these tools coat
them with Teflon, which makes them easier to twist the helix in and
out of the cork. Gears and racks are used in various arrangements in
the search for a better device.
A recent innovation to the cork screw is prong-type puller. In
this design, two flat blades are attached to a handle. The prongs
are inserted on each side of the cork by wriggling and rocking,
until they are inserted all the way. The handle then is used to
twist loose the cork, so that it can be pulled out.
The Label
All wine bottles have two labels: one on the front, and one on the
back. Both are used to give the consumer vital information.
The front label probably will provide the:
- Name of the vineyard.
- Type of wine (Chardonnay, Chianti, Chablis, Burgundy, etc.).
- Vintage, year or place.
- Name of the producer.
- Alcohol strength.
- Size of the bottle.
The back label will give other data, such as:
- Sulfite content, if any.
- Year of bottling.
- Warning of alcohol to pregnant women.
- Miscellaneous information.*
Yet More on Its Shape
Often, wine bottles are found in artistic configurations. Shapes
that resemble common items are produced for many wineries. Those in
Italy and other European countries are especially partial to
unordinary shapes. Many of these odd shapes change the volume of the
bottle, but they usually have a volume near that of a standard wine
bottle.
Wine also is available in boxes that are made of treated paper or
cardboard, as well as in plastic, cans, and pouches. They come in
various sizes, from 1-liter to 5-liter boxes. They have proved safe
and reliable for storing wine and do not have any adverse effects on
the taste of the wine. Also, they are convenient for serving large
groups and useful for when one wants to draw small amounts into a
carafe from which one might serve. Personally, I do not care to use
them, because they deprive me of the charm of opening a bottle of
wine.
Conclusion
Wine bottles, like the nectar they pour, will go on forever. They
are so charming in the way that they bring pleasure and enjoyment to
drinkers of wine. Like so many other parts of out lives, they can go
without recognition and leave no mark on the memory. What was in the
bottle is what will be remembered.
With Regard to the Barrel
The art of making barrels is centuries old, but the basic procedure
has changed but little from the past to the present. The need for a
container with which to store various items, including liquids,
motivated early peoples to invent the barrel. The Romans first made
barrels in the third century. The Gauls had been making barrels for
centuries even before then. There is no certainty about what the
first attempts looked like, but we can be sure that the early
materials available at that time were few and crude. Man’s inventive
nature eventually led him to the use of staves and hoops.
On the Wood
The first barrels were made from whatever kind of tree that was
available locally to the barrel maker. After many years, it was
found that when wine was stored in barrels made of oak, it made an
improvement in the taste of the wine. Today, white oak is
universally used for making wine barrels, because of that wood’s
ability to improve the taste of the wine. The very tight grain of
oak wood provides a slow transfer of the wood’s flavor to the wine
and is a desired feature.
American oak, when first used for barrels, was not successful,
because it gave an overly strong taste to the wine. Experiments with
how the seasoning of the wood and how the staves were prepared by
the French resulted in improvement in the use of American oak.
French coopers let their wood air-dry to attain proper seasoning.
American coopers made their wine casks as they had made their whisky
barrels, with kiln-dried wood that had been sawed instead of split.
When French methods were applied to American oak, the results were
so improved that now American oak is accepted nearly as well as
French.
On the Barrel Maker
Today’s barrel makers—or coopers, as they are called—have refined
their work to an art that is practiced by highly skilled artisans
with much time-consuming handiwork. Today’s tools enable them to do
much of the same old procedures faster and with more precision.
The coopers of today are not called upon to make wine barrels
only, but also they must make many other containers of different
sizes. There is a need for casks, buckets, tubs, puncheons,
breakers, and many more. Barrels provide a means for storage; and,
because they are round and bulged in the middle, they are easy to
roll and move about from one place to another. An empty barrel
weighs 130 pounds, while a full barrel of wine weighs 600 pounds.
The most commonly used barrel holds about 59 gallons, which will
fill 300 bottles of wine.
When the oak trees are felled in the fall and winter (while the
sap is low), the coopers are there so that they can select the
choice parts of the tree to use in making their barrels. The
preferred material should be straight and without knots. In France,
the selected pieces are hand-split in half and then quartered, in
order to be able to check on tightness of grain and the tannin
content.
On Barrel-Making
American oak is sawed into pieces, instead of being split—in part,
to obtain more pieces per log. The pieces are planed and then
stacked outside in the weather for a minimum of two years. During
this aging process, the formation of sugar and acids is noted. After
the blank staves have been aged properly in the curing yard, one
side is planed flat and the other is planed with a slight hollow.
After being cut to length, they are tapered at each end and beveled.
The staves then are heated to make them more flexible for assembly
with hoops, which hold the ends together to form the beginning of a
barrel body. Both ends of this assembly are now grooved on the
inside of the ends to accept the heads of the barrel. This groove is
called a “croze.”
Other phases of construction of the barrel include testing for
impermeability against leaks. Then, the inside of the barrel is
toasted—a process that helps to impart wood flavors to the wine. The
process of toasting is accomplished by using an oak fire to char the
inside of the staves slightly before final assembly. The heat from
toasting caramelizes sugars and certain ingredients in the wood that
will be taken into the wine by the alcohol that is in the wine.
The amount of toasting is a matter for the winemaker to choose.
He or she knows that the type of wine that will go in the barrel has
certain characteristics that he or she wants to emphasize. The
winemaker has a choice of at least three different grades of roast
from which to choose: light, medium, and heavy. These types can vary
from cooper to cooper, with inconsistent results.
In order to create a more consistent system of toasting, tests
have been made by an independent cooperage. Four different types of
barrels in size and shape were used, to cover fully the range of
toasting that is in common use. An infrared temperature sensor was
placed near the bilge (bulge) and at the base of the fire pot that
holds the burning oak-wood pieces and which is used for toasting.
The temperature sensor was coordinated with a time recorder. Records
of the time and temperature were made every few seconds during the
toasting-process test. By using these readings, a desired type of
toasting was able to be repeated accurately on any other new barrel.
This ability, which is referred to as “profiling,” was very useful
to many winemakers who had particular requirements.
However, the old historical way has not been forgotten and still
is used by most barrel makers.
On the Future of the Barrel
Some winemakers get a second life from a barrel by scraping the
insides of the old barrel to expose a new surface of wood and then
roasting it. This achieves additional use from the barrel, but it
has not proven to be as successful in treating the wine as does
using a new barrel.
A recent publication suggests that oak barrels might become
obsolete. This view is built upon the common use of oak chips or
blocks of oak wood that are submerged in steel tanks of wine to
induce the taste of oak in the wine. This process does not have the
effect of aging in a barrel, but it is a much less expensive way to
obtain the oak flavor. Good oak barrels are extremely expensive, and
the use of chips or chunks can reduce drastically the cost of a
bottle of wine. The vintner is obliged to note the process on the
back label of the bottle.*
Conclusion
The true value of the bottle of wine is influenced by the reputation
of the label and the method of production.
* January, 2007
|
