Not long ago, four of us sat down to taste through various barrel lots of our 2008 Pinot Noirs. Such tastings are always a learning experience, and this was no exception. I must say that at the end of it, I thought my feelings about barrels are justified.

I used to buy Burgundian oak barrels from a variety of different coopers, made from different forests at different toast levels. Those sorts of combinations can multiply rapidly. Through the years, I’ve undergone a honing-in process in barrel selection. I’ve found that, depending on the individual wine, usually a particular barrel (one forest, one drying regime and one toast level) from each cooper works best.

I simply ask myself, which barrel enhances the wine best? If you try to use several different barrels to build a wine – this one enhances the entry, this one builds up the middle palate, that one fills in the finish – it can be too much, producing a wine that is technically correct but lacks personality.

From each cooper, whether the forest is Allier or Tronçais, or it’s two- or three-year air-dried oak, there is a particular barrel that either supports the fruit personality of the wine or lends some personality of its own to move the fruit subtly in a good direction. It’s not overly aggressive, but it just works. Then I can mix two different barrels to compound the results.

For example, from François Frères, I tend toward Allier wood to build the mid-palate. From Billon, I prefer a three-year air-dried Vosges medium toast barrel that subtly enhances minerality while showing sweet fruit. And those two barrels do work very well together.

For Chardonnay, I go very subtle because any white wine shows the wood so much more. I like the quality of oak, not toast, in Chardonnay. So I choose lighter toast coopers and tight-grained wood that slows aging and leaves the wine tight and compact.

Right now we’re working on blending the 2008 vintage wines. We’re starting to look at some new programs like a heritage selection blend. It’s preliminary, but right now this blend seems to be dominated by Old Martini and Calera selections. We’re just at the stage of picking the best barrels, and it’s really fun.

We’re even considering a small amount of stand-alone Martini in a combination of Billon and Sirugue cooperage. This would be a high acid, intense, red fruit dominant Pinot Noir.

Crop-wise, 2008 was a short vintage, but as I’ve mentioned previously, everything in barrel is very solid. There are no dogs in this vintage. The crop yields were almost a joke, in some cases 60% less than what we would have thought they should be. But the resulting excellent fruit intensity, nice structure and amazing color make it a very good vintage.

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