Best use of a wine barrel yet found:

Cut off one end (keeping the metal hoops intact, to hold everything together), and have a wood shop with a CNC router carve your winery's name and logo into the face of the barrel-end, for a hanging sign.

It's certainly a better use for a wine barrel than holding wine in it.

Why not to hold wine in a wine barrel:
1. Barrels leak.
2. Barrels are expensive (new French oak barrel is about $1000 now).
3. Barrels get infected.
4. Barrels can allow excessive wine oxidation.
5. Barrels can be used for only a few vintages (if you want noticeable oak extraction), so they have to be replaced relatively often.

In stark contrast, using tanks for storage (stainless steel, speciality plastic, specialty concrete, or glass) makes much more sense, and the winemaker can carefully control the oak dosage and type--just add the oak to the wine in the tank!

Brilliant.

So please try not to be THAT kind of wine customer--the kind who thinks less of a winery if they don't see lots of barrels stacked around; the kind who asks "how many acres of grapes do you have?" Quality is more important than quantity; science is more important than tradition.

Pictured is my wine barrel-end, after heavy oil staining (to help the staves swell up tightly). Next up is CNC routing of winery name and logo, by a wood shop. Once the carved-out letters and logo are painted white, I'll coat the entire thing with polyurethane (for weatherproofing), and hang it by chains from a new beam we installed over the barn's hayloft doors!