Toasting: The Art of Fire and Intuition

In the Remond Cooperage workshop, fire has a language of its own. It crackles, breathes, moves and its task is to reveal what the forest has patiently shaped. Toasting is an ancestral dialogue between living wood in transformation and the cooper, a moment of connection where the artisan becomes the fire’s interpreter.

Metamorphosis
Toasting is the transformative moment when oak staves are exposed to heat. Under the fire’s controlled assault, the wood’s chemical structure shifts and purifies, its aromas unfold; from delicate vanilla to roasted coffee notes; its color deepens, and its fibers soften to accept hooping. Like an alchemist, the cooper orchestrates this material and aromatic transmutation of oak through fire. And to ensure the toasted wood complements the wine without overpowering it, there is both art and method.

Remond Cooperage has developed five toasting intensities, adjusting temperature and duration: MTL-, MTL, MTL∞, MTL+, MTHS. MTL stands for Medium Long Toast—a visionary technique born in the 1990s under Catherine Desbois’ leadership. The signature of Remond, this long and measured toast allows for gentler integration of tannic polyphenols and a subtler diffusion of woody notes. The wine gains purity of expression: minerality, balance, complexity, structure, or power, according to the winemaker’s vision. The toasted wood becomes a reveal, never a mask.

Intuition
While toasting is learned through precise protocols and control instruments; infrared thermometers, stopwatches, hygrometers; it remains an intuitive art, perfected by experience. 80% of the process relies on sight, hearing, touch, and smell. The cooper listens to the crackling of the wood fibers, observes the even coloring, and inhales the scent of perfect toasting. They adapt to the moment’s atmospheric conditions: humidity slows the heat rise, cold extends the toast, pressure alters combustion. So they open the workshop’s large doors to let in air, or lengthen the staves’ toasting time. Étienne, Remond’s master toaster for 35 years, understands the relationship between fire and wood with the intuition of the obvious.

Evolution
Today, winemakers’ oenological expectations are shifting toward less wood aroma and more fruit expression. Remond’s answer is MTL∞, a prolonged toast that preserves freshness without drifting into smoky notes. A new nuance, true to the house’s longstanding spirit: to accompany, never to impose.
Here, fire is more than a tool: it is a partner. And toasting is an art learned over time.

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