🍷 Stave

A stave is a curved wooden board, one of the strips that form the side of a barrel. Wine barrels are made mostly of oak staves.

Staves are made by a cooper. French oak has to be split along the grain rather than sawn, which leaves less usable wood; denser American oak can be sawn. Before use, the wood is seasoned: it loses water, traditionally by drying in the open air. The stave is then heated, usually over a fire, so that it can be bent into the shape of a barrel.

The taste of the wine depends on the staves. Toasting changes the compounds in the wood, and the oak then passes notes of vanilla, coconut, smoke and spice into the wine. The species of oak and where it grew also affect the result. Wood is porous, so a little air passes through the staves into the wine.

The stave is the main element of the oak barrel. A barrel that has already been used gives the wine fewer oak compounds than a new one. Oak staves and chips are also put into wine or spirits in tanks, which shortens maturation compared with barrels.