Innovative Process To Reuse Your Barrels

(OrchardandVine) - In bygone days, when a wine barrel was past its prime, it usually ended up being cut in half and sitting in someone’s yard as a planter. Now those barrels can be restored using a technology known as Phoenix, developed by Diverse Barrel Solutions, an Australian company.

Founder and president of the California company Winesecrets, Eric Dahlberg was looking at various ways to restore wine barrels and was considering using high powered sonic technology. He called New Zealand-based Vintech Pacific, which told him about Phoenix Barrel.

Intrigued, Dahlberg set up a meeting with Nick Wickham, the principal of Diverse Barrel Solutions, in Adelaide, Australia. “I liked the sound of the technology and the company itself,” relates Dahlberg. “Just before Christmas of 2011 I went down to Australia to watch the Phoenix machine work.

Upon seeing the system work and what it did, I knew my customers would be compelled by it. The company had handed out restored barrels (which had been previously used for Shiraz) during the summer of 2011. In early 2012 I went around to the wineries that had received the barrels and tasted some of the wines being made in them. I knew right away that this technology was a winner.”

The feedback from winemakers was unanimous: the Phoenix barrel was everything promised. With the restored barrel, winemakers found a flavour profile that seemed more developed than new oak and at the same time, it retained new barrel characteristics not seen in neutral wood. Dahlberg knew there would be a high demand for a restored barrel. In 2012, Bob Rebuschatis was appointed VP of Business Development for Phoenix Barrels, and a Phoenix system was installed at the Winesecrets facility in Sebastopol, California.