Are Oak Barrels Overrated? The Surprising Benefits of Staves in Winemaking

For centuries, oak barrels have been synonymous with fine wine. Their curved silhouettes stacked in cool cellars have become an enduring symbol of tradition, craft, and patience.

At Hastwell & Lightfoot, we're always balancing respect for heritage and tradition with the pursuit of precision and improvement — striving to leverage innovative technology to make our wines better with each vintage that comes to pass. In recent decades, one tool has quietly emerged as a valuable alternative in the winemaker’s toolkit and it’s humbly reshaping cellars and wineries around the world: oak staves.

A Brief History of Oak Staves

Oak has been used in winemaking for over two millennia, with the Romans largely responsible for popularizing wooden barrels for both storage and transport. The use of loose staves—as opposed to full barrels—has gained traction only in recent years as global wine production has grown and the cost of new barrels has climbed. As a result, winemakers have begun experimenting with oak alternatives like staves, chips, and inserts, seeking ways to capture oak character without the expense of full barrels.

What Are Oak Staves?

Staves are the individual planks of oak that form the sides of a barrel. When used as an alternative product to completed oak barrels, they are toasted and placed inside stainless steel, food-grade plastic or concrete tanks, typically using a rack or rope system that allows the wine to interact with the wood in a controlled way. The result is similar to barrel aging: flavors, tannins, and aromatic compounds such as vanillin, spice, and toast notes are slowly imparted into the wine. However, there are a few key benefits to working with staves as opposed to oak barrels. 

We’re so convinced of these benefits, in fact, that the only barrels you’ll find at our winery are those that have been upcylced into furniture : tables, chairs, and backdrops at our cellar door and wedding venue space.

Precision and Quality Control

One of the greatest advantages of staves is control. With a barrel, the influence of oak is largely determined at the time of purchase—species, grain, and toast are locked in. Staves, however, give the winemaker flexibility to:

• Adjust the number of staves in a tank to fine-tune oak intensity.
• Remove staves when the appropriate level of oak intensity has been achieved without having to migrate the wine to another vessel.
• Select specific toast levels with greater consistency, as staves are produced under uniform conditions.
• Use multiple stave profiles within a single tank, layering different oak characters in one batch, similar to how a chef might choose to layer flavours like crème brûlée, vanilla, hazelnut, etc.

This allows for precise tailoring of oak influence to match the style and fruit profile of the wine.

Sustainability and Efficiency

Another important benefit is sustainability. Only a small percentage of oak logs are suitable for barrel coopering, and even then, much of the tree is left unused. Staves and other oak alternatives maximize the yield from the same raw material (both French and American oak are used), making them a more resource-efficient option.

From a practical perspective, staves also reduce the labour associated with barrel upkeep and eliminate challenges like leaks or spoilage that can occur in older barrels. They also cost a fraction of a new barrel—sometimes as little as 10% of the equivalent volume.

Tradition Meets Innovation

To be clear: staves are not about cutting corners. They are about making deliberate, thoughtful choices in pursuit of quality.  Sure, barrels still carry a certain romance — but from our perspective, their practical value is significantly overstated. Barrels allow far more oxygen transfer than many wines actually need—often at the expense of delicate aromatics. By using oak staves in food-grade plastic vessels, we can achieve the same oak integration with far greater precision. This style of vessel allows for gentle micro-oxygenation, but without the excessive “breathing” of a barrel, so the wine retains its freshness, purity, and vibrant top notes while still gaining the complexity of spice, toast, and structure that oak provides.

A Winemaker’s Perspective

At Hastwell & Lightfoot, we see staves as an essential part of the modern cellar. They bridge tradition and innovation, enabling us to respect the heritage of oak while embracing sustainability, consistency, efficiency and superior flavour/aromatic precision.

If you're interested in sampling a selection of our wines made with oak staves, we invite you to book in for a tasting experience at our McLaren Vale cellar door. If you can't make it to the Vale, we recommend purchasing a sample pack of our wines online and including our Sands of Time Shiraz. This medium-bodied Shiraz showcases the bright fruit from our vineyard and is complemented, not overshadowed, by judicious use of seasoned French oak staves.

So...the next time you enjoy a glass of red with supple tannins, bright and vibrant fruit flavours, a hint of vanilla, or a touch of spice, know that it may not have come from a barrel at all. It may have been guided to perfection by humble oak staves—quietly shaping the wine with intention and care.