To Age or Not to Age... in Oak, That is

Fermentation is still in full swing and I'm thinking ahead as I don't want to be caught off guard again as I was with the Chardonnay press. The next phase will be racking the Chardonnay into a Carboy and the Pinot into eight gallon containers. Then, the Chardonnay will be re-racked and the Pinot will go into a Carboy. For the next round of racking, we have a decision to make regarding aging. Does this wine want to go into oak barrels? Do I want to pay for it to go there? On one hand, why wouldn't you give it some nice barrel age. On the other, there are SO many things that can go wrong - dumb newbie mistakes and spoilage, that buying barrels is perhaps not a good financial decision for a first round.

New six gallon barrels are $150 apiece. And I'm not really interested in having new oak flavors in either of them. The problem is that if I go the significantly less expensive used route (which are harder to come by in OR and WA than in CA), the barrels might be tainted with TCA, which would lead to the wines being "corked", rendering them undrinkable. The project wouldn't be a waste of time -- there was fun and learning along the way, just a disappointment.

Time to make some phone calls to other wine guides for some professional opinions!