Wine Barrel
notes: label: Description
content: This 225 liter (60 gallon) barrel is made of French oak and was used to age red wine at Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars (SLWC) in California’s Napa Valley in the mid-1990s. Manufactured by the French cooperage Seguin Moreau, in Merpins, it was one of hundreds stacked in a large storage room, where red wines were aged before SLWC’s cave was completed in 2000.
label: Description
content: Cooperage is an integral part of winemaking. Wooden barrels typically hold 50 to 60 gallons of wine, while casks are larger, including some that hold 1,000 gallons. The wooden staves allow a small amount of air to slowly enter the wine, which many believe imparts some desirable flavor and aroma characteristics to the wine as it ages. Before Prohibition, redwood and American oak were typically used for aging wine in California. As the industry was rebuilt after Repeal, California vintners turned to France and experimented with storing their red wines in small oak barrels instead of large casks. They experimented with oak barrels for whites as well, which led to some robustly oaky Chardonnays in the 1980s and 1990s. Many now agree that limiting whites to a few months in oak produces a more desirable result.
label: Description
content: While French oak is still preferred among many winemakers, some have found that oak from Hungary or various parts of the United States lend a different but pleasing character to wine.
topic: label: Subject
content: Wine
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Agriculture
label: See more items in
content: Food
label: See more items in
content: FOOD: Transforming the American Table 1950-2000
label: Exhibition
content: Food: Transforming the American Table
label: Exhibition Location
content: National Museum of American History
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1998.0181.17
label: accession number
content: 1998.0181
label: catalog number
content: 1998.0181.17
objectType: label: Object Name
content: barrel, wine with tracking sheet , bung, and 4 barrel chocks
label: Object Name
content: barrel
label: Other Terms
content: barrel, wine with tracking sheet , bung, and 4 barrel chocks; Food Technology; Winemaking
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: wood, oak (french) (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: metal (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: manufactured (overall production method/technique)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 95 cm x 57 cm; 37 13/32 in x 22 7/16 in