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BEHIND THE SCENES with John Terlato Across the centuries, oak barrels and wine have enjoyed a won- derful marriage. The genesis and evolution of this relationship sheds inter- esting light on today's winemaking practices and the use of oak barrels. Let's start with some historical context. For the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, wine was a cultural staple—a beverage to be enjoyed and a commodity to be transported and traded. The standard storage/transport vessel of the time was the amphora—an enormous, impervious clay pot. When the Romans conquered the Gallic Celts in 55 bc, they discovered a decidedly more modern and efficient storage/trans- port vessel: the oak barrel. The clever and resourceful Romans rapidly adopted the barrel as a standard means and measure of transport and trade across the empire. And so the lowly oak barrel was thrust into the mainstream, transporting just about everything from brined fish, salt, mead and beer to wine. It was at this moment the Romans also noted that the wines transport- ed in oak were more subtle than their "clay-stored" cousins—an early example of the positive effect of storing and aging wine in oak barrels. And so began the marriage of wine and oak. Over the next millennia, vintners around the world—from the monks to the aristocrats and all in between—utilized and experimented with oak barrels in their winemak- ing. Today, many hundreds, if not thousands, of choices have sprung from those centuries of experimentation: point of origin of the oak, grain porosity, grain fineness, toasting levels and methodologies (duration and temperature), percentage of new oak versus neutral oak, aging duration relative to specific varietals, stave thicknesses, barrel size. The choices and permutations are mind-boggling. The ultimate goal is balance. Barrels undergo a toasting process that can be designed to advance the vintner's vision, highlight a specific vineyard and/or variety, while having an optimum impact on the wine to be aged in that barrel. John Terlato in the barrel room at Chimney Rock, one of his family's California wineries. Each of the Terlato family–owned wineries utilizes different coopers and barrel specifica- tions as determined by specific vineyards and the varieties grown in those vine- yards and destined for those barrels. 3 2 | t h e c l e v e r r o o t by John Terlato AN AGE-OLD RELATIONSHIP THAT STILL MATTERS WINE& OAK The Marriage of