What you need to know about how oak barrels affect wine
There's something about a barrel room in a winery.
On the surface, it's just a giant room filled with a bunch of identical wooden barrels stacked in rows. That alone can be an impressive sight, but when you think about what is happening in that room, that's when the potential and energy of the situation become almost palpable. Inside those barrels, wine is evolving, maturing, taking what it can from the wood or - if the wood has very little to give - taking what it can from the air and the passage of time.
Barrels (most often made of oak
