Now that I've decided to get a barrel, likely a 50 liter Hungarian oak, a
couple of questions come to mind....

One of the options presented for barrel storage is keeping it full of a
strong sulfite solution (2g/l metabisulfite). The issue of losing your oak
aside, would this not soak into the wood, and find it's way into the next
wine fill, creating an excessive SO2 level?

Also, with a new barrel, they say there is considerable soak up into the
wood in the first few months. This is wine lost. Would it be better to put
an inexpensive wine into barrel first and lose a lot of that, so that less
of your expensive wine is lost to the wood?

Brian