Wooden barrels aren’t the only options for aging wine.

The folks at Wine Country Getaways recently published this look at Andis’s concrete eggs as wine making vessels. I wrote about this same subject back in 2011. The Wine Country Getaways post has a nice photograph of Andis’s concrete egg.

The concrete vessel provides an ideal wine aging environment. Because of the thermal mass of the concrete, the wine inside is not subjected to the same temperature variations as wines aged in steel or wood barrels. The concrete also has less air exchange than wood barrels, so the wine oxidizes less in concrete. These two characteristics mean that the wine aged in concrete will have brighter flavors.

The characteristics that aging wine in a concrete vessel provides the wine maker with another tool, another option, in crafting a wine. I’m not sure concrete eggs will become a “fad”, but will probably be used by various wine makers because the resulting characteristics match up with those wine makers’ wine making styles. Another tool is a good thing!