Chapter 03

Made in American Oak
Higbee, Missouri, U.S.A.

Chapter 01

Grapegrowing

Chapter 02

Winemaking

Chapter 03

American Oak

Chapter 04

Provenance

A Time-Honored Craft

What do Pappy Van Winkle and the great wines of Rioja have in common with root beer, tabasco and ginger ale? Humble, hardworking American oak barrels.

Handcrafted by skilled master coopers, American oak barrels form the backbone Silver Oak Cabernet Sauvignon, imparting rich, complex flavors while also providing the tannic structure for wines capable of longer aging. There are fewer than 50 master coopers in the entire United States. These men and women are highly skilled in the craft of barrel-making, having honed their trade through years of back-breaking labor at “the block,” as coopers say.

Silver Oak became the first winery to own and operate an American oak cooperage when it fully acquired The Oak in 2015. Located in Higbee, Missouri, the cooperage is overseen by Master Cooper Daniel Orton, who helps us sustain a consistent supply of high-quality American oak barrels.

Signature Style

Flavors and Aromas

Flavors, aromas and tannin imparted by American oak add richness and depth to our Cabernets. This unique expression is a product of two main influences: the trees that produced the barrels and the level of barrel toast.

Influenced by Oak

Flavors and aromas originate in the tree itself: where it was grown, the composition of the hardwood and the tightness of the grain. Tighter grain is less porous, leading to a more subtle oak flavor influence. Trees grown in cold, harsh climates typically produce wood with the tightest grain. American oak is less tannic than French oak, but higher in lactones (organic esters) that lend a creamy texture to the wine.

Toasted to Perfection

Toasting, or applying fire to the inside of a barrel, modifies the structure and chemical properties of the oak and has a profound influence on flavor and aroma compounds. The amount of time spent over an open fire changes a barrel’s sensory profile. Lightly toasted oak exhibits spiced flavors like cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg. Further toasting brings out vanilla, caramel and nutty aromas. At The Oak cooperage, we run numerous ongoing barrel toasting experiments to continue pushing our understanding of the relationship between white oak and Cabernet Sauvignon.

Locally Sourced

Sustainable Forestry

From Seed to Stave

Naturally, American oak barrel production begins with a forest. It takes at least 80 years for an American white oak to reach maturity. The best trees have straight trunks, unblemished wood and are free of low-hanging branches. The interior heartwood is used for staves and headers, with each log producing two to three barrels.

Sense of Place

The forests where American oak trees grow span many states. Each state’s microclimates influence the characteristics of the oak, playing a significant role in flavor profiles. To reduce our carbon footprint, we source our staves from stave mills within a 200-mile radius of our cooperage. Growing conditions, age and genetic variation of individual trees can strongly affect wood structure and composition. Even a stave’s original origin within the standing tree trunk can influence its aroma composition.

Preparing Wood Staves

American oak staves are quarter-sawn and cut against the grain, allowing for nearly the entire log to be made into watertight staves. American oak’s high volume of tyloses, a gum-like substance that plugs the pores of the heartwood, prevents barrels from leaking. Logs are carefully selected and then milled into staves.

Seasoned the Old-Fashioned Way

Staves are air-dried, or “seasoned,” for 24 months to achieve 12 to 14 percent moisture levels for liquid-tight barrels. Natural drying allows rain and other elements to reduce the tannins in the wood, softening the flavors. The seasoning process also results in pliable wood that can be molded into barrels without splintering.

Step By Step

The Art of Barrel Making

The making of an American oak barrel begins in the forest. Trees selected for barrels must meet stringent quality measures. Before the construction of a barrel begins, the wood is carefully sawn and seasoned–or aged–to soften the oak influence and improve flavor integration.

Step 1: Set Up

The master cooper selects the optimal staves for a Silver Oak barrel. He inspects the grain, sap flow marks, knots, worm holes and even the pattern in the grain. Every barrel has 32 staves carefully arranged in a specific pattern. The set-up is a puzzle as each stave varies slightly in width and a barrel cannot have any gaps.

Step 2: Bending

To bend the staves into the barrel shape without cracking the wood, each barrel is warmed over an open fire. Once the outside of the barrel reaches 300˚F, temporary hoops are placed on the barrel by a hydraulic machine to force the barrel into shape.

Step 3: Toasting

The newly shaped barrel returns to the fire for toasting. It takes approximately 40 minutes to obtain the medium light toasting preferred for Silver Oak barrels. Toasting crystalizes natural sugars in the wood, releasing aromas of freshly baked bread and roasted marshmallows. The freshly toasted barrels go through another round of quality control after which the barrel is capped with round barrel heads.

Step 4: Hooping

The temporary hoops that had been applied to the ends of the barrel during bending are removed and replaced with two new, clean and permanent galvanized steel hoops on each end. Temporary hoops around the belly of the barrel are removed, but before new hoops are secured, the outside of the barrel is sanded down, creating a pristine and smooth finish. After sanding, the final hoops are hammered and nailed on.

Step 5: The Final Touches

Each finished barrel is iron-branded with The Oak Cooperage logo and sanded one last time to remove any final scuff marks before being shipped to Silver Oak.

Go behind the scenes at The Oak cooperage and learn about the influence of American oak on Silver Oak Cabernets.
“Considering the vital role it continues to play in some of the world’s most iconic wines, along with recent qualitative improvements, American oak deserves a closer look.”
—GuildSomm

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Provenance
The Silver Oak Guarantee