Barrel Monkeys

Pictures at end of post.

On saturday we put the San Giovese and Pinot Noir into ageing in the flextank maturation vessels. We were particularly pleased with the Pinot Noir, which we could have bottled there and then. In fact, we should not be that surprised since the technique to which we adhere was structured so as to allow you to drink your wine early without extended ageing and the expense of keeping things barreled for a while. After all, this is a product to be drunk! In fact it is interesting that even today in Italy "il vino rosso di Toscana" can only be labelled "vino di tavolo" - table wine. No more no less. It's made to drink. You can do what you want to it and age it and have the planet deem it a super-Tuscan, but at the end of the day, it's table wine.

A further post this week will talk about ph and free sulfites.

But speaking of tradition (remember we explored "barrel spinning"? see link in list of links at left for that), well Via Vecchia Winery keeps alive the tradition of Barrel Monkeys.
The work of a Barrel Monkey is a forgotten trade, eclipsed by the popular movement that liberated the child chimney sweeps and child labour during the mid Industrial Revolution. If Dickens had lived in a viticulural region he would have written about Barrel Monkeys instead of Chimney Sweeps.
Barrel Monkeys would climb into huge fermentation vats and crushing troughs (we'd love one of those) and clean them out. Sometimes the fumes from a fermentation vessel would be too much and the child would pass out. This would be dangerous were it not for the fact that the child was made to wear a bell around their neck. For as long as the child moved, the bell tinkled. If the bell stopped tinkling the child would need rescuing. If the child played a trick and deliberately stopped so as to silence the tinkling, the vintner would bore them with that fable of Aesop's about The Boy Who Cried Wolf. "nuff said.
There is one school of thought that says the term monkey was used in reference to the bell the child wore which was like the bell a performing monkey would wear on his costume when employed at the hurdy gurdy with cup in hand.
Here, we see Via Vecchia making use of a volunteer Barrel Monkey for a day.
In the video and pic you see him with a maturation vessel lowered over him. He then turns around and around, wiping down the insides of the vessel as he turns. Obviously we helped, but we didn't fancy having him crawl in and roll it around from inside on the floor to clean it.


Here are the flextank maturation vessels. They each hold 200 gallons of wine.

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