Advantages of Stainless Steel Wine Barrels
Durability/Longetivity
While the average oak barrel will last for generations, the actual use for the winemaker is three to five years. Oak wine barrels are only new once and each year the flavor they impart to the wine diminishes by about 30%.
Going Green
Grape growing and wine making just isn’t what is used to be. Sustainability is on the rise in every wine region in the world. Implementing sustainable practices wherever practical include water reclamation ponds, using solar power, composting instead of fertilizing, recycling corks and on and on.
Economic
As the economic side of winemaking gets tighter and tighter, the industry is increasingly aging wine in stainless steel tanks and wine barrels. When the desired “oakiness” is needed wine makers turn to oak alternatives in the form of chips, chunks or planks.
Oxidation/Evaporation
Oxidation… the villain of every winemaker. Any air found in the head spaces of containers used in the aging process can destroy a wine’s character in a non-recoverable way. Stainless steel impervious structure allows for exacting control of the wines exposure to oxygen.
Experimental Overflow Batches
Stainless steel is a neutral metal and will have no influence on the taste of wine. That makes stainless steel barrels for wine barrels an ideal fermentation vessel for profiling flavors of your experimental batch, especially those searching for a more fruit-forward flavor.
Reusable And Easy To Clean
Today a new term is becoming the foundation of wineries everywhere... Sustainability is not just important for wineries today, it is essential. The ability to reuse stainless steel barrels without any trace of the prior contents keeps them at the top of the list for many of the most talented winemakers.
