Hybrid barrel promises ‘best of both worlds’
An Austrian cooper has patented the world’s first wine barrel made from a combination of wood and stone. While heavier than a conventional oak cask, the ‘Hybridfass’ comes with some surprising benefits.
The barrel, a world’s first, was made by Manuel Schön in response to consumer demand for fruitier, fresher wine styles.
Schön, who runs the fourth generation Schön cooperage in the Lower Austrian village of Sitzenberg-Reidling with his sister Jennifer, said he was inspired to align his family’s barrel-making expertise with the growing interest among winemakers in alternative vessels such as clay amphora or concrete eggs. He also wanted to tap into his own generation’s thirst for wines with precise fruit and expressive aromatics.
After extensive development and testing, including a project with young winemakers in the 2024 vintage, Schön’s new “Hybridfass” is now ready for market. The new barrel promises to create more reductive wines that are fresher and clearer in expression, while still offering the desirable aromas and softening micro-oxygenation associated with wood maturation.
Calming element
“Stone is the calming element,” explained Schön, who is a trained oenologist as well as a cooper. “It hardly lets any oxygen through, does not require toasting and allows the wine to settle in peace. It brings clarity, sometimes even a subtle saltiness.”
Schön’s customers – 85% of the company’s production is exported across more than 15 countries – also have an option to customise their hybrid barrel. The cooper offers various types of oak, toast level and stone, with local granite and slate used for the initial models, although producers are also welcome to discuss their own preferences.
In line with the company’s strong sustainability focus, as the wooden components age, they can be renewed without any requirement to replace the stone. The Schön cooperage sources oak with different profiles from forests across Austria, France, Germany and Croatia. It also caters for customers’ more unusual wood preferences such as acacia, cherry and chestnut.
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These innovative vessels look set to appeal to a select, reasonably high-end target market. Each 225-litre barrique costs around €1,200, while the stone component makes it weigh in at 88 kilograms, roughly a third heavier than a conventional oak barrel.
Despite this barrier to mass market appeal, Schön predicted: “The hybrid barrel in its current form is just the beginning. We are already receiving enquiries for barrels with marble inserts or even fermentation tanks with concrete lids. It’s great to see how we can bring a breath of fresh air to our craft as we move into the future.”
Forest blends
As the drinks business previously reported, ‘forest-blend’ barrels are becoming increasingly popular with fine winemakers. Roger Oferil, winemaker for producer Merum Priorati in Spain’s Priorat, told db: “In the past we used to buy barriques based on the forest. Limousin, Tronçais, Allier etc. Now I prefer to buy by producer style.”
Just as a winemaker adjusts the percentage of each grape variety used in a blend, barrel makers are adjusting their own proportions: “I might ask them to use 1% of this forest, 1% of that forest,” Oferil explained, to achieve his final goal.
Beyond wood, vintners are also taking greater interest in the provenance of the clay used to make their amphora vessels. Whether sourced from Georgia, Italy, France or Spain, the origin and characteristics of specific clays have significantly different impacts on wine. “Georgian clay for amphorae has a higher porosity and is rougher, so I use it for primary fermentation,” winegrower Elena Casadei told db. “I use Tuscan vessels for orange wines and for the ageing of red wines. Because it has less porosity, it acts more like wood, but gives softer tannins.”
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