Tree Rings: Counting the grain
Let’s start with the question, do violins and wine barrels have anything in common?
Certainly, they are both made of wood. And given that characteristic, does the tightness of the wood grain, i.e. the width from year to year, affect the tonal quality of the string instruments and the taste of wine aged in barrels?
If you answered yes, you have a good ear for music and can appreciate fine wine.
I raise these questions because a recent article1 described the “counting” of the annual rings in the soundboards of historic violins crafted by the renowned luthier Antonio Stradivari (c. 1644 – 1737). It led me to considering what is tight grain versus medium grain oak for wine barrels. As I read further and did some research, I realized that counting the rings, such as on a stump to find the age of the tree, is a relatively simple operation. However, counting, or more accurately measuring, the rings for the oak placed in barrels more difficult, and doing the same for the wood in a 350 - year-old violin seriously challenging.
My research found that John Topham was a British violin maker and dendrochronologist, that is a measurer of the tree rings. Over many years Topham amassed the tree ring data for 284 out of the estimated 800 violins made by Stradivari. The results showed that for most of the violins surveyed, the soundboards, the front piece, was constructed from wood with a very tight grain. Before his recent death, Topham graciously donated this data to another dendrochronologist, Mauro Bernabei of the Italian National Research Council. Subsequently, Dr. Bernabei and his colleagues, were able to compare Topham’s data with numerous sites for which ring measurements have been made enabling them to pinpoint the forests from which Stradivari sourced at least some of his lumber.
Subsequently, Dr. Bernabei and his colleagues, were able to compare Topham’s data with numerous sites for which ring measurements have been made enabling them to pinpoint the forests from which Stradivari sourced at least some of his lumber.
The tonal quality of the soundboard is critical to a violin. And many musicians think that the tight-grained wood Stradivari employed was one of the attributes that gave his instruments their special sounds. Most of his violin’s used soundboards made of Norway Spruce (Picea abies). So, the researchers concentrated their search in the Italian Alps. After analysing reams tree ring data, they were able to zero in on the “high-altitude forests in Trentino, Italy, and most likely from the Val di Fiemme in particular “(2). You may recognize that region as where some of the 2026 Winter Olympic events were held.
For wine, many winemakers have also experienced improvements using barrels made with tighter grained wood. These would be barrels made from wood sourced from cooler and drier regions in northern France or other regions in Europe where the trees grow slower and thus have more growth rings per unit of measure, i.e. inches or millimetres. Other things being equal, these barrels tend to release their flavours slower, integrating better with the wine.
According to researcher de Pracomtal and colleagues (3), tight grain wood has more vessels in the spring wood. Counterintuitively, this helps explain “why tight grain seems more aromatic: More aromas are released from the vessels, which makes sense as this is where the sap was with minerals, nutrients and sugars” (page 65).
So, basically, the slow release of the aromatics intensifies the wine. And by the same nature, the dense wood of the soundboard creates deep, rich tones.
References:
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Kornei, Katherine (2026, 4 March) Tree Rings Reveal Origins of Some of the World’s Best Violins. Accessed on 5 March 2026 from https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/04/science/stradaviri-violin-forest-tree-rings.html
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Mauro Bernabei, Ilaria Stefani, Ulf Büntgen, Marco Carrer, Paolo Cherubini, Katarina Čufar, Michael Grabner, Frédéric Guibal, Nicola La Porta, Nicoletta Martinelli, Olivia Pignatelli, Klaus Pfeifer, Andrea Seim, Willy Tegel, John Carass Topham, Rob Wilson, Pietro Franceschi. (2026) Tracing the origins of Stradivari’s resonance wood, Dendrochronologia, 95, pp. 1-7. Accessed from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1125786526000123 4 March 2026
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de Pracomtal, Guillaume, Marie Mirabel, Rémi Teissier du Cros and Anne-Charlotte Monteau (July 2014) Types of oak grain, wine élevage in barrel. Practical Winery pp. 64-9.