Pino, you now have a "neutral" oak barrel. Barrels run out of oak flavor in
time. I have a couple of these in my cellar. Now I add StaVin oak beans to
wine in the barrel and still benefit from the concentration and mellowing of
flavors that occurs while barrel aging. I don't think you need to top up
twice a week. I keep "top-up" wine in beer bottles. My 10-gallon barrel
needs one 12 ounce beer bottle of wine every two weeks to stay full.

Bill Frazier
Olathe, Kansas USA

"Pino" > wrote in message
ups.com...
>I have a 12 Gal French barrel about 1 1/2 yrs old and it seems that is
> out of oak flavor already.
> I have rotated 4 wines into it and this last cab sauv has been in since
> July 10 and still very little oak flavor although the wine is coming
> along very nicely.
> I wonder if topping off twice a week is slowing down the oak extraction
> process?
> Or should I be doing something to the barrel between each wine change?
> Up to now the barrel has been continously full with quick rinse of so2.
> thanks
> Joe
>