Cellaring & Aging
All of our wines are aged in a mixture of new and neutral French Oak, with most wines typically being aged in at least 20% new French Oak barrels. We use a variety of coopers and source barrels from different forests in France. Some of the coopers that we use include Taransaud, Sylvain, Saury, François Freres and Orion. Each cooper has its own special technique for the production and seasoning of the barrels, and therefore each producer’s barrels have their own distinctive effect on the flavor profile of the wine. We use barrels, as a chef would use different spices in the making of a dish with each having its own flavor characteristics.
During the first year, the wines are splashed during racking to attain some oxygen pickup. When racking in the second year, depending on the wines tannin level, the wine may receive less aeration. Our red wines stay in barrel for approximately 16–30 months to allow the wines to develop and graciously integrate the flavors of oak into the wines. When racking prior to bottling, the cellar workers use pure nitrogen under pressure to push the wine out of the barrels and to the bottling tank.
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