I have 50 L barrels as well (probably from the same place as Steve) and top
them up weekly (or every second week on occasion). Right now I have three
vintages in various stages in the "winery"; 2001 were bottled 3-4 months ago
and are not labeled, 2002 are in carboy for blending and 2003 are in barrel.
For topping up I use a similar wine from the 2001 bottles.

My barrel room is relatively warm (low to mid 60's) so weekly topping off is
important. As a reply to an earlier post, I have estimated that over the
course of a year I add back about 10L or 20% of the volume of a barrel.
Usually I have two wines go through a barrel, so this represents about a 10%
concentration for each wine.
Tim


"Dan Emerson" > wrote in message
om...
: "steve small" > wrote in message
>...
: > Hi folks,
: > I just wanted to get your input into the topic of topping up you
barrels -
: > specifically how frequently you are topping them up.
: >
: > I have several small barrels (around 50Litres) and have been in the
habit of
: > topping them up weekly. My reading suggest that some people do this more
or
: > less frequently or possibly not at all.... any comments?
: >
: > steve
:
: And another question. If you have to top up every week or so with 100
: to 200 ml of wine, where does that top up wine come from? How do you
: store variable volumes of wine for topping up? You can't take 100 ml
: from a carbouy. Do you bottle wine prematurely? I suppose you could
: top up with commercial wine and drink the remainder. What do you do?
:
: Getting a barrel next year.
:
: Dan