A new age for California white wines - Page 6 - SFGate
Consider stainless steel barrels, which increase the ratio of solids to liquid in fermenting wine. Their use began around 1994 with three winemakers - Pam Starr, Mia Klein and Francoise Peschon. They found steel barrels with oak inserts could add wood flavor without having to buy a new French barrel.
"We didn't want the wood, and that's how we ended up getting the stainless barrels," recalls Starr.
It allowed white wine - Sauvignon Blanc in this case - to gain far more texture than it would in a large steel tank, but without the influence of wood.
The steel still allows winemakers to stir up the solids, or lees, to enrich mouthfeel, a technique that helps give Chardonnay its "buttery" character. Starr went the other direction: putting the wine through a long, cold fermentation and letting it rest untouched all through the winter, slowly building character - a technique she finessed after meeting Loire pioneer Didier Dagueneau in the 1980s.
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