Barrel Aged means the wine sat around in a barrel for a while. (Duh.) When wine is made, after the initial fermentation, and after the largest particles have been removed, it has to age for some time, or else it tastes like grape juice that you left in the back of your fridge for too long.
Try this some time: Mix some Welch's with some vinegar. Drink. Or better, make your dumbass roommate drink. This is what un-aged wine tastes like.
There are different ways to age wine, but one of the best known methods is barrel aging. Another term for it is 'Oaking' because the barrels are frequently made of oak. (Again, duh.)
Oaking the wine gives it a woodsy, vanilla quality and allows the wine to oxygenate slowly. This gives it a smooth finish that sounds desirable to me. I am not sure what the other options for wine finishes are off the top of my head. Rough? Sharp? Spicy? Probably something like that.
Anyway, barrel aged wines are highly sought after, with the most expensive wines in the world all being oaked.
If you want to know a whole lot more, read this six-page pdf. I am sure there is more information than that out there too, but seriously, if you want more than six pages about oak barrels and how they relate to wine, you probably should not be reading my blog to start with.
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