sustainability
Innerstave holistically supports economic & environmental sustainability through oak complements.
sustainability is holistic
environmental
- Water Usage – no water is used to clean oak wood complements
- Transporting oak wood complements is 10x more efficient than shipping and trucking barrels around the world.
- The energy used throughout the barrel production process is far more wasteful than producing oak barrel alternatives
economic
- Oak barrels can be up to 10x more expensive than oak complements
- Wine loss in barrel can be 3-5% / year / barrel
- The barrel storage and labor costs of maintaining barrels continues to increase
- Wine analysis costs per barrel are more expensive and require more labor
workflow
- Microbial risks in a barrel program exponentially increase as you need to clean each barrel
- Oxygen control in tank through micro-oxygenation is possible with oak complements
- Customization of flavors and extraction times is far more possible with complements than barrels
the impact of a barrel
A good cooperage can use only about 25 percent of a tree for barrels due to the specific dimensions required for the shape of barrel staves.
Unlike coopers, Innerstave’s milling capacity allows us to use nearly every usable part of barrel quality wood from an oak tree. By cutting around knots and using our various oak formats – from chips to blocks to staves – we have redefined the term “barrel quality” to include the entirety of our precious natural resources.