Episode 6: Welcome to the Underground Cellar | Japanese Wines

The smell of oak-aged wine is absolutely Devine! It’s a heady mixture of evaporating wine from the 500 to 600 barrels stored here. Château Mercian ages 90% of its wines in French oak, which is generally accepted as being the best as it is highly aromatic. These complex aromas result from the fact that the most sought after oak only grows in a few regions of France, where the soil is poor in nutrients, not too moist, and contains no iron. The oak’s fine porosity is a result of it growing extremely slowly in the ‘poor’ soil. The winery also uses American oak for about 10% of its wines. American oak is also very aromatic and has proven to be well adapted to maturing red wines with an intense palate. Its sweet coconut aroma goes very well with our Muscat Bailey A red wines and some of our Chardonnays. These barrels can be used for up to 10 years. The first 2 years of use results in the very best wines. Each year we add about 100 new barrels and we keep a total of about 1000 of these barrels all together. White wines are oak-aged up to 6 months, while the reds age anywhere from 15 months to as long as 30. The ideal temperature of this cellar is 19 degrees Celsius, so it is necessary to run a cooling system in the summer months. In addition, we keep the humidity at around 70%. Anything less than 70% humidity will cause the wine to evaporate too quickly. If you look closely at the lids of the barrels, some have MT or MTL+ (Medium Toast/Medium Toast Long +) indicated on them. Toasting the insides of the barrels gives a vanilla, chocolate, roasted almond or caramel aroma to the wines. In fact, we can order 7 different levels of toasting from the manufacturers to suit our exacting specifications. There are also lids made from cherry and acacia! These lids give a slightly different aroma and flavor to our wines.