One easy step to a “greener” wine experience…
It seems that the environmental movement has officially become part of the world’s everyday consciousness, and I for one applaud it enthusiastically. Fashions can be funny things and can indeed make for strange bedfellows, but in the last several years, those who many of us thought were irredeemably anti-ecologically minded (you know, the guy who eats his 4-plastic-container lunch in his car with the engine running and the AC on, and throws each non-recyclable piece of garbage into the shrubs near where he parks) have begun to understand that conservation, alternative energies, etc. are no longer optional or even advisable, but imperative as the Earth warms, the landfills fill, and the air blackens…
So what can a little old winedrinker do about as daunting a problem as total global destruction? I say lots. Clearly, supporting such activities as Organic and Biodynamic winemaking is an obvious (and important) action, but making this choice can at times be difficult. Due to the red tape involved, many organic winemakers or those that are far “cleaner” than many others opt out of the classification. At other times, finding a wine that is both organic as well as the best match for what you’re eating can be a tall order to fill.
So here’s a way that you can go “green” with your winedrinking with every single bottle you drink: AVOID WINES MADE IN NEW BARRIQUES! There are many ways to ferment and age wines that come in all shapes and sizes from all corners of the globe, but none are as wasteful or as expensive as new barrique aging.
One could argue that the “greenest” winemaker both ferments and ages in stainless steel tanks. Yes, there is the initial cost and “tax” on mother earth in extracting the iron to make the steel, and the subsequent energies required to work the raw material into the actual winemaking tool, but once done, this tool can be used a nearly infinite number of times without further major pollution emissions.
What might be termed as half-step down from 100% steel production is the use of LARGE, re-usable wooden barrels like those that make up the standard in winemaking regions like the Rhone (where these huge barrels are known as “foudres”), or in many parts of Italy (where these casks are known as “botti”). Clearly, if a barrel is used and re-used tens or even scores of times, lots more beautiful, air-scrubbing trees are left breathing and in situ...
So not only do most barriques NEVER get re-used (which requires that new barrels be made every year, which then clearly and directly means more tree-chopping) if you press the investigation further, the hits just keep on coming! Barriques are also a fraction of the size of every steel or large cask (barriques typcially hold 225 liters of wine, while foudres, botti, and steel tanks often exceed 10,000 or even 20,000 liters of capacity), so to contain the same amount of wine, literally scores more trees must be felled to make enough barriques to hold what a SINGLE larger container would hold. Then multiply this phenomenon over literally THOUSANDS of wineries that tend HUNDREDS of barriques - That ain’t nothin’!
In taking the next step in this line of thinking, the energy expended in making SO MANY barrels, not only the materials themselves, must also be factored into the equation. How many more passes of the saw are required to make hundreds of barriques compared with one botte? I’m not a cooper, but the extra fuel burned in the course of this production cannot be discounted. Further, most barriques are delivered with a level of “toasting” (botti and foudres are rarely toasted, but rather the staves are air-dried, and clearly stainless steel gives one nothing to toast to begin with) that the winemaker specifies in his or her order to the cooper. Toasting essentially involves a type of controlled burning of selected woods to which the finshed barrels are exposed. The fire/heat/smoke from this process melts and then caramelizes the saps in the barrels which lend those “toasty oak” notes to certain wines aged in them. But clearly the price paid for toastiness is yet more energy (and pollution) expended in the burning process, as well as even MORE wood cut as the fuel for those fires…
Those of you who know my tastes also know that I fundamentally LOATHE wines made in new barriques (there are exceptions though) and might accuse me of using this ecological argument against barrique PRODUCTION as a lever against my real target, oakey-chokey wines. Well, (partly) guilty as charged, but the thing “is what it is” too: no matter how you slice it, there can be no denying that those winemakers that insist upon renewing their barrel stocks for every vintage are far less “green” than those who use large, re-used barrels and/or stainlees steel tanks. Period.
As is becoming very clear to all of us who care about the world in which we live, the spector of dangerous global warming trends, air and water pollution, etc. cannot be defeated by the single, massive, “silver bullet” approach, but rather by EVERYONE doing little things on multiple fronts - a sort of a “death of a thousand cuts” approach to vanquishing the greatest threat to humankind in recent memory. So raise your glass to not only “greener” but “cleaner” wine - kick the barrique!
TOM CIOCCO
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Tom, interesting post. Thanks for highlighting this inconvenient truth of winemaking. As always, I learned something new (including what “barrique” means.)
If you are one of those people who happens to enjoy the pitter-patter sound of little oak monsters running through the house, what to do? How about stainless steel production but with wood chips? I gather that wood chips are widely used, but are still stigmatized, especially among the more purist sectors of the wine industry. If people embraced the use of wood chips head-on and wholeheartedly, wouldn’t that help ameliorate the problem?
Comment by TagWorld Brian — April 9, 2007 @ 3:01 pm
TWB-
In my eyes, wood chipping would only exacerbate the problem - it woulds likely mean more amateurishly oaked wines, the availability and lower cost of chips would likely cause more producers to use them, which would then in turn lead to cutting down even MORE oaks (or clearing natual lands to plant artificial “oak farms” to keep up with demand)
…or do I misunderstand you?
TOM CIOCCO
Comment by Tom C — April 9, 2007 @ 3:16 pm
If we abandon oak entirely what would this do to traditional wines whose very nature is to have a stronger oak component, eg Rioja or Bordeaux?
While I know these are not to your taste many enjoy them for what they are. I think being “green” can be taken too far. What’s next suggesting we require vineyards to use residential labor to harvest grapes because the carbon footprint of illegal immigrints are too large?
Comment by Alco Holland — April 9, 2007 @ 4:01 pm
Hey Tom-
Nice article. I was wondering…what you stance was on cork production? I can’t help, but wonder if your argument for new barriques could be used for corks. Yet, your argument for stainless steel might be meaningless in an argument for screw caps and/or boxed wines because they cannot be re-used (even though they can be recycled). I guess what I’m asking is what is the ‘greenest’ form of wine storage? Which form do you prefer?
Comment by Fiorentina! — April 9, 2007 @ 4:12 pm
Alco-
Point taken, but with regard to Rioja and Bordeaux, it’s not only the effect of new wood on the wine but as much the length of time that these wines are left in barrel…though many CONTEMPORARY Rioja and Bordeaux producers re-new their barrels evey vintage, this is a modern trend.
TOM CIOCCO
Comment by Tom C — April 9, 2007 @ 4:28 pm
Fiorentina-
The difference between oaks used for barrel making and cork oaks is that the cork from cork oaks is harvested like fruit (not nearly as frequently though - I think a cork oak can be stripped once every 7 years or so) in that it doesn’t kill the tree. This is clearly impossible with wood sawn for barrels.
Though it has barely elicited even a glance from most producers and consumers, the glass cork (see my earlier piece on enclosures) is 100% recyclable, but glass manufacture requires lots energy, so I’m not sure that cork doesn’t STILL come out on top for “greeness”.
TOM CIOCCO
Comment by Tom C — April 9, 2007 @ 4:38 pm
Tom, my point about wood chips is that it seems a few wood chips flavors the wine like an entire wood barrel, but using a much smaller amount of wood. I don’t know how the taste actually compares, to someone who knows the difference - but I’ll bet some wineries agree but still resist abandoning wooden barrels for fear of offending purist consumers and critics, or possibly violating some arcane winemaking law/reg. Is this so?
Another question: even if a winery won’t use a barrel twice, can they recycle it by selling to another winery, or selling for use in storing liquors like whiskey, cognac, etc.? Does this only account for a small percentage of such barrels?
Comment by TagWorld Brian — April 9, 2007 @ 6:40 pm
TWB-
Wood chipping is undoubtedly a lesser way to “oak” a wine (which in my opinion is a questionable action to begin with - if barrels impart a certain flavor to a wine, so be it, but the first (but not the only) reason for barrels is to STORE wine, so the choice to wood-chip is the choice to FLAVOR wine, no different than making Key Lime Sauvignon or Very Berry Bordeaux. No top wine maker would ever use wood chips (or least never admit to it)…it is both in perception AND reality a cheap short-cut
Yes, people who only age their wines in new barriques do indeed sell off their used barrels to other winemakers, bourbon, whiskey producers as well, but they’re still having to buy new barrels every year anyway.
TOM CIOCCO
Comment by Tom C — April 10, 2007 @ 9:22 am
Thanks. An interesting, informative topic as always.
Comment by TagWorld Brian — April 10, 2007 @ 1:16 pm
Thanks Tom, it’s something I haven’t thought about before.
I think that there’s an important point to be made about renewal of forests. I don’t know to what extent this is done, or to what extent the current stock of oak forest is being depleted by modern maturing trends - presumably replanting is important from a survival point of view for the industry. If forests are replanted after harvesting for barrels/chips/staves, then there is some clawback on the environmental damage. This is similar to the idea of wood-burning stoves being more carbon neutral than other forms of heating.
Then you’re left with the problems created by the manufacture of barrels, which is equally applicable to almost every aspect of wine production.
But oaking is definitely something to bear in mind for the environmentally concerned.
Comment by David — April 12, 2007 @ 3:25 am
Tom. Great post. Thanks for bringing this issue up. I try to think about the environmental impact of everything I do, and I drink a lot of wine. I also thank you for mentioning the “greeness” of corks. Corks are in fact, the greenest way to plug a bottle of wine. As you pointed out, the trees are not destroyed. Also, the need for all these trees has had a pleasant side effect. The cork forests in Portugal, having been left alone to grow cork, are some of the most ecologically diverse places in Western Europe. The Audobon Society did a great article on this in last month’s issue and I encourage everyone to look it up. Many species (birds, elk and even the Iberian lynx) actually have a place to live because of these cork forests. If the demand for cork is lowered by the rising demand for synthetic corks, that relatively untouched land could be in jeapardy. Anyways, thanks for brining this important issue up.
Comment by brooklyni — April 13, 2007 @ 12:58 pm