Topping-up

27 May 2015 – General

While it was pouring rain outside, we worked in our cellar and topped up the casks. In this process, the volume of wine that falls prey to natural evaporation is replaced and the barrel is once more refilled to the brim.

For every 225-litre barrique in every vintage, this amounts to some 5–10 litres of wine. Or in other words, every time we top up the casks, it consumes the equivalent of one barrique of wine. We use a 50-litre vessel of stainless steel, and out of this, propelled by a mixture of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, the wine passes through a hose and a spigot into the cask, after which the bung is tightly replaced once more.