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Cooperage at Yalumba
The crafting of oak barrels is a proud tradition at
Yalumba with a coopering history dating back to the
turn of the 20th century. With its own on-site cooperage,
Yalumba is the only winery in Australia, and one of
a small and select gr oup of wineries in the world, to
enjoy this privilege. Oak plays an important part in the
winemaking process and Yalumba have the advantage
of being able to have full control of the quality of oak
used to age their wines.
Yalumba imports
oak staves from the
world’s best oak for ests
in France and America,
and then air-dries the
oak for many Barossan summers and winters to leach
any sappy, bitter characters from the wood. This
extended seasoning (as opposed to the more common
practice of seasoning the oak for between 18 months
and 2 years) imparts rich chocolate mocha characters
and adds yet another layer of texture to the wine with -
out masking the fruit avours.
Once seasoned, the oak is delivered into the hands
of the Yalumba coopers to be fashioned into barrels.
After being carefully cut and manipulated into shape,
the cooper then res the barrels to toast the wood.
Yalumba prefers a light-to-medium toast as highly toasted
barrels can have a negative impact on the structure
and texture of the wines.
Unique to Yalumba is the 90-litr e octaves that ar e
made especially for their premium Old Vine Barossa
Shiraz, appr opriately named “The Octavius.” The term
“octave” is thought to have been coined by early coopers
to describe a barrel an eighth of the size of a standard
cask. For a small barrel like the Yalumba octave,
one would expect the oak contact to almost over-power
the wine. Yalumba has found however, that with its
extended oak seasoning together with careful grape/wine
selection, two years in an octave does not result in extensive
oakiness – just wonderful richness and complexity.