As many, if not all, of you reading this blog already know, the use of oak in winemaking is a very common practice for adding complexity and quality to a wine. Using oak is typically more expensive than using stainless…
Nearly every single person reading this blog is well aware of the fact that fermenting and aging wine in oak barrels adds wood-specific sensory characteristics to the wine, which come from certain volatile chemicals in the wood interacting with the…
As a result of the relatively high cost of oak barrels, winemakers have been searching for a comparable alternative at a fraction of the cost. Oak chips, while somewhat taboo in their earlier days, are gaining favor among winemakers as…
Earlier in October, The Academic Wino reported on a study investigating the influence of toasting on the antioxidant capacity and phenolic composition of oak-aged wines (click here for that article). The main finding of that research was that model wines…