Our Process

 

Our process, developed over the past 14 years, has focused on ensuring no residue of wine or wine trace such as ethanol remains in the barrel and all heat affected wood from the original toasting is completely removed.  We achieve our goals with sophisticated tooling and computer controlled processes and guarantee consistency with strict quality control management.  We have successfully ReCooped over 45,000 barrels and continue to help our clients win gold medals in local, county, state, national and international wine competitions.

It's all about quality and consistency

Much the same as a wine is only as good as the grape, a ReCoop barrel is only as good as the barrel we start with.  Throughout our process we thoroughly inspect a barrel no less than six times to ensure our "zero" defect quality policy is achieved.  We will provide you with a world class barrel because of our uncompromised commitment to quality.  

Our inspection criteria focus on concerns related to:

bulletOff flavors.  Barrels that have been poorly taken care of, have molds or fungi impregnated wood will be automatically rejected because of potential off flavors or TCA contamination.
bulletStructural integrity. Since a ReCoop barrel must be able to sustain a 6 high stacking regimen for an additional 8 years, three years imparting flavor and oxygenating wine and 5 more years as neutral wine vessels, any sign of weakness will cause a barrel to fail during our inspections..
bulletLeak prevention and early detection. Broken staves, hairline fractures or compromised chimes will cause a barrel to be rejected because of the potential for leaks. 
bulletExcessive blistering.  Improperly aged wood used in a barrel will have gas pressure buildup during toasting.  This trapped gas will create so much pressure that the wood will explode or blister. Since we must remove a 1/4" of wood from the inside of the barrel to ensure the highest quality product, a blistered environment would require the removal of an excessive amount of wood and therefore compromise a barrel's structural integrity.

Once the barrel passes the initial arrival inspection, we remove the heads and plane the inside of the barrel and head, removing 1/4" of material.  We then age both barrel and heads with a target moisture content of below 13%.  Our patented curing process will volatize all ethanol and wine essence prior to tasting.  After the barrels are closed, the bung hole is seared, the barrel is hydrated, and the barrel is water and pressure toasted.  Once the barrel passes the final test we brand the head and stamp the date. 

A Brand of Quality