Winemaking Topics: Topping Barrels

Posted on July 14, 2012 by Hank Smeal

Most of the wine produced at City Winery is aged in oak barrels for periods ranging from six months to over two years. When first placed into the barrel, some of the new wine is absorbed into the wood, especially if it is new. Gradually, air will be drawn into the barrel as this happens. Since wood is not an airtight container, some wine is also lost to evaporation. To prevent oxidation the barrels must periodically be “topped” with additional wine to eliminate any air space. The following video is a tongue-in-cheek look at topping barrels, meant to be entertaining as well as informative. Shot entirely on-location at City Winery.

Intro: A lone cellar intern contends with wine barrels that need topping. The consequences of letting the wine oxidize lead to an out-of-control chemical reaction that has everyone running for cover.

10 Interesting Facts about Winemaking at City Winery

Posted on October 26, 2011 by Erica Swallow

City Winery and its team are quite diverse, partially due to the winery’s situation in downtown New York City, but also based on the winery’s multi-purpose use as a winery, entertainment venue, restaurant and tasting room.

Each week, we update you on the latest goings on at the winery. But we thought it’d be nice to take a glance back at some of the unique traits of our winery with a few fun facts about us. We hope you find these facts about our winemaking as interesting as we do!

1. When lees (that is, deposits of dead or residual yeast and other particles that precipitate to the bottom of a tank of wine after fermentation and aging) is removed from a wine at City Winery, we recycle it to the kitchen, where white lees is used to make pizza dough and red lees is used to make pretzels. Really dark lees can also be used to paint barrels.

2. City Winery’s Assistant Winemaker Bill Anton was a horse jockey for 20 years before joining the wine world!

3. We don’t “crush” grapes at City Winery. Instead, we simply destem and sort grapes before they are placed in tanks. This helps us maintain the integrity of the fruit as much as we can in order to optimize fresh aromas in the wine.

4. Press wine makes up about 25% of City Winery’s red wine production.

5. City Winery produces a number of kosher wines each year. The kosher winemaking process is overseen by the winery’s Kosher Assistant Winemaker Yanky Drew.

6. The Winery’s Barrel Room uses a house wine tap system to funnel up wines from the winery’s wine cellar. The system employs 11 taps and enables the winery to serve fresh wines on site.

7. At City Winery, we top barrels every 2-3 weeks to prevent oxidation. During the topping, we use the same variety of the wine being topped.

8. The City Winery team bottles and labels all wines on site. In fact, our in-house designer creates all of the wine labels used on our house and barrel member wines.

9. One barrel of wine fills 21 cases — that’s 252 bottles of delicious wine!

10. Because City Winery is located in Manhattan, it cannot be situated on a vineyard. Instead of growing our own grapes, we source grapes from some of the finest vineyards in California, New York, Chile and Argentina.

What else would you like to know about City Winery? Let us know in the comments below.

The Importance of Topping Barrels

Posted on September 14, 2011 by Erica Swallow

Cellar hand Sikou Nikate tops barrels on the top row.

The City Winery team topped barrels on Wednesday. Topping is the process of filling barrels with wine as small amounts evaporate through the barrel.

Wooden barrels are porous, and as a result, they breathe, causing the evaporation of small amounts of wine. As wine evaporates, an increasing amount of air space opens up between the barrel and the surface of the wine. Too much air space can cause a wine to oxidize — if a wine has been excessively exposed to air during either its making or aging, the wine loses freshness and takes on a stale, old smell and taste. This is known as oxidation.

To prevent oxidation, winemakers top barrels.

Sikou Nikate cleans around the barrel bungs prior to topping.

At City Winery, we top barrels every 2-3 weeks, using the same variety of the wine being topped.

Prior to removing the bung (the stopper that closes the barrel), the City Winery team cleans around it with a sulfur-citric solution, diluted in water. This solution sanitizes the area around the bung and hole, so that bacteria doesn’t enter the barrel during the topping process.

Once the bung is removed, it is placed in a bucket of the sulfur-citric solution, where it is sanitized during the topping to safeguard against contamination. After the topping is finished, the sanitized bung is replaced.

Blogger Erica Swallow tops barrels using a pressurized keg and small light.

We use a pressurized keg and small light to top barrels. The keg is placed on a dolly and trucked around the barrel room, and the light is handy for seeing where the level of the wine is in the barrel.

The idea is to top the barrel so that the bottom of the bung touches the surface of the wine. Topping too full will cause wine loss when the bung is replaced, and topping too low will leave unnecessary air space.

It is especially important to top barrels once a wine is finished fermenting. While fermenting, carbon dioxide is created, protecting the wine from oxidation. After fermentation, though, the wine is more sensitive to oxidation, and thus winemakers should take great care to top barrels when needed.

Let us know if you have questions about topping in the comments below.