# How Long Will Red Wine Keep In Barrel?



## glaab (25/6/10)

Hi all,

am mate of mine, Niell, bought a 300L American oak barrel full of Cab Sav at an auction on Monday.
He has some impulse buying issues I think. Anyway, the red tastes ok, not great but definately drinkable, it tastes a bit "young".
Does anyone know how long it will last in the barrel? It's too expensive to buy goons to bottle it, even at $2 ea he'd be up for $300. If we purge the headspace with CO2 [he's syphoned out 20L or so] will it keep in the barrel?, and for how long? Basically trying to work out how to prevent it turning into vinegar before we get to drink it. 

Thanks for any replies, Cheers


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## Phoney (25/6/10)

Im no wine expert, but it depends on the wine doesnt it?

Some wine is made for cellaring and some is made for drinking straight away. To be safe I wouldn't want to keep for it >12+ months.


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## praxis178 (25/6/10)

glaab said:


> Hi all,
> 
> am mate of mine, Niell, bought a 300L American oak barrel full of Cab Sav at an auction on Monday.
> He has some impulse buying issues I think. Anyway, the red tastes ok, not great but definately drinkable, it tastes a bit "young".
> ...



Cab Sav should keep (if you purged the head space and added a bit of Sodium Metaphosphate) for about 36months tops before it will be over oaked, you don't know what year it is?

There are about 450 750ml bottles to a 300L barrel or about 900 345ml stubbies, either way it's a bit of work to fill and cap if you don't have the right tools.

PM me as my Dad had a winery and still has some of the bottling gear so might be able to tee you up with a filter and bottle filler and corker if your mate has some spare cash post wine buying.


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## Muggus (25/6/10)

glaab said:


> Hi all,
> 
> am mate of mine, Niell, bought a 300L American oak barrel full of Cab Sav at an auction on Monday.
> He has some impulse buying issues I think. Anyway, the red tastes ok, not great but definately drinkable, it tastes a bit "young".
> ...


Hi glaab,

You'll find your going to struggle with purging the headspace with CO2 if you want to keep this wine in barrel for a good amount of time.
Ideally, a fully ripe Aussie Cab Sav will need at least a year in American oak.

The key to keeping it from oxidising in this time is keeping the free SO2 (sulfur dioxide) levels at a reasonable level. 30ppm is decent, but it's all dependant of the pH of the wine, gets a bit technical, blah blah. 
Also some of the wine will evaporate in this time...the angels share...what you want is the barrel as full as possible at all times...otherwise you'll be continually having to pump inert gas (CO2) into the headspace...time consuming, quite expensive for what it's worth, and at the end of the day it might not work. So you'll occasionally need to top the barrel up with more wine!

Do you happen to know the SO2 level in the wine? You'll need some lab equipment to find out, and you don't nessesarily NEED to know, but it helps to know...saves you using more SO2 than needed. Best source of SO2 is using PMS, which most homebrew shops will sell.

Barrels are a bit more work than most people think. If you leave it alone, it's gonna oxidise.
The key is to keep it topped up and sulfured!


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