Cellar Stuff: Topping Up

Boy am I out of it today. I wish I could say I was groggy from a particularly heavy night of sampling. No, we were topping up until midnight last night. Tipping back is a lot more fun, but topping up is necessary on a regular basis.

Topping up is when we replace wine into the barrel that has been lost through evaporation (or, I'll admit, from sampling). We have to keep the barrel full or else run the risk of acetobacter using the oxygen in the container to start the process of converting the wine to vinegar. During the winter, when the humidity is low, we top up every two weeks, or so. Newer barrels, which are more tight, seem to have a lower evaporation rate and require less topping wine.

We always keep some wine around (excess wine of the same variety and vintage that didn't fill a barrel full before) in stainless steel tanks. We then pump that wine, using gentle pressure from a nitrogen tank (to avoid air contact), into the top of the barrels to fill up the empty "head space." Hmmm, the term "empty head space" reminds me of a few people I know...

But I digress.

That air space is also know as ullage [UHL-ihj] in France (As Steve Martin says, "Boy, those French: They have a different word for everything!") If you really want to show off at the wine bar, you can use the French term "ouillage" to demonstrate your knowledge of topping up...and your ability to annoy the other patrons.