Tour of Rewine Barrels + Tasting at St. Innocent

We toured Rewine Barrels today down in Jefferson, Oregon (near Salem). Rewine refurbishes used barrels to give them another life as a nearly new barrel. If you don’t know, wine aged in oak barrels picks up aromas, mouthfeel components and tannins from the barrels. It is very common that winemakers use brand new barrels each year to make their super premium red wines. If you’ve ever tasted pleasant warm baking spices or smokiness, it’s probably from new oak. Most commonly, winemakers use French oak. There are real differences between American oak and French oak as far as the flavors they impart to the wine. New oak is expensive. This year, new French oak barrels are $1,000+ each. This is because a lot goes into making the barrels. After the wood is cut into staves, the staves are left out for a few years to cure. The staves are cut perfectly to form a barrel without using any glue or nails to hold them together. Then the barrels are toasted to a level according to what the winemaker wants. The differing levels of toasting impart different characteristics to the wines. 

Barrels can be reused, but they lose components each year. In 3-5 years, the barrel has no components to offer the wine, but these “neutral” barrels can be used for wines that don’t need the added aromas, mouthfeel components, or tannins. Many varietals do well without added oak components of a new barrel and benefit from the level of oxygen transfer from a neutral barrel. Red wines that have distinct fruitiness or floral aromas may do well retaining those characteristics in neutral oak.

Because barrels are so expensive, and because there is a general drive to reuse things here in Oregon, Rewine Barrels refurbishes used barrels. They take old barrels, sand the inside down, then retoast it. The walls of the barrel become thinner during this process, so it’s not something that can be done more than once. But once gives it another life, and it only cost us $400 per barrel. We bought four of them to be delivered to us in a couple of weeks.

Steve talking with Thomas about the refurbishing process.

I think this is where the barrels get sanded.

This the “before” of a barrel. All that wine-stained wood will be sanded off.

Since we were in the area, we then visited St. Innocent Winery for a tasting, which was a wonderful experience. They have a lovely wine and food pairing menu, and I loved the experience of being able to taste different wines with new foods. The owner, Mark Vlossak, was so generous with his time and information when we told him we were starting to make wine. He took us on a tour of the winery, answered a million questions Steve had, and gave us a history of the winery and Willamette Valley winemaking in general. He started making wine in the 80s, and started St. Innocent shortly thereafter.

Artfully presented pâté paired with skin-contact Pinot Gris.

Cool map of where St. Innocent sources grapes. The vineyard here on the property is newly planted.