How a barrel cellar can show you a winemaker’s priorities | Canada Voices

A winery tour can help you understand how the wine is made, and reveal a lot about the winemaking philosophy. When a tour guide pauses to explain a specific production method or piece of equipment, they provide insight into what’s most important to the winery’s process.

As winemakers around the world work to grow consistently healthy and ripe fruit despite a changing climate, their winemaking approach has become less about correcting and adding flavours. Touring cellars for the past 25 years, I’ve witnessed an ongoing transformation for the best producers to capture authentic taste that comes from their region.

Bottling lines and gleaming, refrigerated stainless-steel tanks used to be featured attractions for wine tours in the 1980s and 1990s, showing how much the producer prized scrupulous hygiene and quality assurance. These are capital investments in equipment that create efficiencies and allow precise control of the winemaking process, but they don’t leave wine lovers with romantic associations of wine being bottled as poetry.

Any tour today continues to spend significant time in barrel cellars, but the stacks of smaller oak barrels and larger-format wood vessels have been overshadowed by more fashionable alternatives, such as concrete eggs and clay amphorae, that are being embraced by cutting-edge producers around the world.

Oak barrels continue to play an important role, supporting the character of many of the world’s best white, red and even sparkling wines. Wine geeks can get “grain-ular” (a la granular, the overused business buzzword) on the nuance that different types of woods, from different forests, with different toasting levels and barrel shapes can bring to a finished wine.

Barrels containing the same batch of wine can end up showing different intensities of aroma and flavour, which gives winemakers a broader spectrum of flavour to blend before bottling.

To the untrained eye, however, a barrel is a barrel is a barrel. Point at some Humpty Dumpty shaped containers in the corner, there’s a story to tell. Likewise, a row of terracotta pots, modelled after ones used in the ancient world, is an invitation to explain how these winemakers are adopting a back-to-the future approach in the cellar.

Unlike oak barrels, these vessels don’t add woody flavour or tannin to the wine. The earthenware and concrete composite containers provide temperature stability for fermentation and aging. They are also porous, allowing oxygen to help build texture and stabilize the wine.

The resurgence of clay, terracotta and concrete fermenters is part of an increasing thirst for wines with flavour and authenticity. The best expressions offer intense and pure fruit character and rich textures. Considering the investment to purchase and labour-intensive care to maintain, you’re sure to hear about them whenever present in a wine cellar. Hopefully, you’ll also be able to taste the results of that effort in the glass.

Three amphorae/concrete-fermented wines to try now

Clos Baltasar Garnacha 2021 (Spain), $24.95

The juicy red berry character of grenache is on full display in this balanced and fuller-bodied blend from older vineyards in Cariñena. Fermentation in concrete followed by aging in concrete eggs and (3,000-litre oak) foudre contributes savoury and cedary complexity and rich texture to a red that’s ready to drink. This has 15 per cent ABV and 3 g/litre r.s. Drink now to 2028. Available in Ontario.

Haywire King Family Vineyard Pinot Gris 2025 (Canada), $31.99

Part of the Okanagan Crush Pad family, Haywire employs an assortment of large format concrete vessels and smaller egg-shaped containers, along with stainless steel tanks and large oak foudres, for fermentation and aging its wines. This 2025 pinot gris, produced with grapes from the King Family vineyard in Naramata, shows the winery’s fresh and focused style. This has 12.5 per cent ABV and 1.8 g/L r.s. Drink now. Available at okanagancrushpad.com.

Volta Amphora Ramirez Vineyard Chardonnay 2023 (Canada), $29.95

One of the first releases from Volta, an ambitious wine producer from Prince Edward County, this single-vineyard chardonnay was fermented and aged for eight months in a clay amphora before filtration. The result is a vibrant and flavourful white wine with pleasing citrus and peach fruit with refreshing finish. This has 13 per cent ABV and 6 g/litre r.s. Drink now to 2028. Available in Ontario.