Living off of whiskey & wine
Wilson Forest Products employee Kyle Faddis wheels a barrel across the production floor.
Brian Wilson is the COO and runs the business along with his brother, Mike Wilson, who is CEO. The company was founded in 1931 and has been family owned for three generations.
Everett Kirk uses a hammer to get the wood boards in place on the barrel.
Mike Dulaney adds wood to the fire to char barrels.
A barrel gets charred with fire at the Wilson Forest Products. These barrels will be used to make Scotch Whiskey.
Making the specialty oak barrels that are used to age fine wines or whiskeys requires much more than the skills of a good woodworker.
A knowledge of the chemistry of the wood and just the “right touch” in processing it are essential to producing a barrel with the characteristics capable of bringing out the subtle flavors of, say, black cherry in a wine, or spice in a whiskey.
Brian Wilson, who operates Wilson Forest Products near Jefferson with his brother, Mike, has been in the business for years and knows what it takes. “It’s really a combination of art and science,” he says.
The company’s stave mill and cooperage on Jefferson Road produce and sell staves, the cut boards used in barrel making, and finished barrels used by wine makers and distillers around the globe.
“We have customers all over the world – Spain, France and Australia are the big three,” Wilson says.
The company’s staves are sold to other cooperages both in the United States and abroad. All of its finished barrels, however, are now shipped to Scotland, where they are used to make “high-end” scotch whiskey.
Though the family-owned company has been in business in Greene County for 85 years, few local residents could probably tell you what it produces or are aware of its contributions to the production of fine wines and whiskeys.
“A lot of people in Greene County don’t know what we do here,” Wilson says. “Most people think we just operate a saw mill.”
At first thought, wine and whiskey barrels may seem an unlikely product to come from Greene County, but not so, given the fact the high-quality American white oak Wilson uses in its products is indigenous to the region.
Another factor, which only becomes apparent talking with Wilson, is the experience and expertise the company has in producing barrels with the specific characteristics demanded by wine makers and distillers.
Wilson Forest Products has been in the Wilson family for three generations. It was founded in 1931 by Wilson’s grandfather, William, and was passed to his father, Bill, in 1972.
Though their father is still involved in the company, the two brothers are now the principal managers. Brian is chief operating officer and Mike chief executive officer.
All of the wood that the company uses for its staves and barrels is American white oak, harvested from Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio and Maryland. It’s what the customers demand. “It’s what you have to use,” Wilson says.
American white oak seals tightly and is the only oak that contains the right mix of natural chemicals that help create the flavors wine and spirit makers desire, he says.
The same wood is used for barrels for both wine and spirits. “It’s all the same wood; it’s more in the process stage that you manipulate the barrel to fit either the whiskey or the wine,” Wilson says.
The oak logs the company purchases are first cut into staves and aged, or seasoned, anywhere from six months to three years, based on the customer’s preferences.
Once the barrels are constructed, the interior surfaces are “toasted,” or heated with a flame, for a very specific length of time.
“The toasting process is what determines what flavors you are going to get,” Wilson says. “What nuance do you want to bring out in the wine; what nuance do you want to bring out in the whiskey – I can manipulate that to a certain degree.”
Wilson knows the science behind it, the chemical characteristics of the wood and the changes produced by aging and toasting that make the wood capable of imparting a certain flavor to the wine or spirit.
But it is also a kind of art. “It’s not so much you went into a lab and said, ‘I’m going to make it just like this,'” he says. “You kind of have to get that eye and nose for it.”
Needless to say, it also takes having a very sensitive palate.
Wilson, who used to market the barrels, says he once had a customer, a wine maker in California, who invited him to taste the wines from 15 barrels and then try to pick the one aged in his barrel. He was able to pick the right one.
Most customers, Wilson says, will give him a “flavor profile” and ask him to produce a barrel to match it.
“I know I need to toast it this way for so long or that way for so long, or age it, or I know I need a certain grain structure, or I need this or that, to achieve what they want,” he says, adding that it’s a lot of trial and error.
What flavors can he bring to a wine?
“You can get vanillas, you can get crème flavors, you can get red fruits, like cherries and raspberries. That’s from the wood,” Wilson says. “On the other hand, you can get black fruits like blackberries and black cherries, cinnamon and nutmeg, smoke and tobacco; I forget how many descriptors there are.”
And what flavors can he impart to a whiskey? “It’s somewhat the same, but a little bit more you’re looking for the nuttiness, the cinnamon, the spice, the smokiness, not so much the fruit flavors,” he says.
It’s also the wood of the barrel that gives color to a whiskey. “Whiskey, when it is distilled, is as clear as water,” Wilson says. “The oak gives it the caramel color.”
Wilson’s grandfather started the business in Graysville and initially produced only the staves. In 1992, the family moved to Jefferson Road, where it occupies a cluster of white metal-frame buildings, its yards filled with stacks of cut wood. The company opened its cooperage in 2001.
“We’ve grown substantially in the last 15 years,” Wilson says. “We’ve gone through quite a bit with an expansion with newer equipment, more technically-advanced machines.”
The company, which has about 45 employees, continues to make and sell staves. Its cooperage expects to produce roughly 20,000 barrels this year.
In the world of cooperages, Wilson said his is relatively small. Some cooperages do nothing but serve as in-house suppliers to large distillers or wine makers.
He doesn’t have that luxury. “I have to sell my wood and my barrels on the open market,” he says. While larger cooperages focus on volume, he must focus on quality.
“I can’t have a bad one; all mine have to be good,” Wilson says. That is apparently what the company has been able to do. The business has done well serving a niche market for scotch whiskey, including the luxury brands. And many of its customers remain faithful to its products.