Wine barrels are beautiful and elegant (we might be biased of course), but there is a world of science and technology swirling just below the surface.

There are a lot of ways to customize wine barrels to your exact preference: toast type, toast level, oak species, oak seasoning, and today’s topic – head toasting. Let’s explore the history and chemistry of barrel head toasting.

Next up in our Oak 101 Series, we are going to take all the chemistry you learned in the last two blog posts and explore how to use it to get a consistently toasted barrel – time after time. Why is this important? Because what a winemaker wants even more than a great tasting barrel, is a great tasting consistent barrel.

Of all the controllable organoleptic factors of oak – like species, grain, seasoning, and toasting – toasting is the most influential on the flavors given to the wine during maturation.

In this next video, Garret walks us through how American oak logs are graded and purchased by our team of Log Buyers. Watch as he illustrates the process at one of our company-owned stave mills.

Oak is made up of many different [chemical] parts. When working with oak for wine, it is important to understand those parts and how each contributes to the finished product.

If you want to know anything and everything about the American oak forest – Garret Nowell is your guy. He’s in charge of log procurement for World Cooperage and also a Certified Forester.

When it comes to picking a wood species for cooperage, oak is the Michael Jordan of choices – or simply put, the G.O.A.T.  Now we are biased, but there are some pretty good reasons oak is the only choice for our barrels. Today, let’s start at the beginning and discuss where oak comes from.