Criteria to discriminate between wines aged in oak barrels and macerated with oak fragments

Abstract

Wine aging in barrels is carried out to increase stability and achieve more complex aromas. In the last few years, however, the practice of macerating wine with small fragments of toasted oak (chips) has become increasingly common. This conveys similar tastes, aromas, and wooden notes to the wine as those obtained with traditional barrel aging, but much faster and at a fraction of the cost. Without proper regulation, this could lead to fraud if wine macerated with chips is offered as barrel aged wine. In the present study, 75 volatile compounds have been determined by applying gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (MS) and flame ionization detection (FID). It has been found that compounds directly related to the wood have greater discriminative power for telling apart wines aged in barrels from those macerated with oak fragments, but no single compound permits flawless classification. Therefore, we have studied the effect of the addition of oak fragments of different origins, different oak types, different formats and subjected to different toasting processes on a set of 231 samples from 6 Spanish Denominations of Origin wines (DOs), and compared them to those same wines aged in oak barrels. In light of the results, we have developed a set of criteria which allows distinguishing with high degree of accuracy between wines which have been aged in barrels and those macerated with oak fragments. The application of these criteria to different wines allows correct classification in over 90% of cases

Fingerprints of acacia aging treatments by barrels or chips based on volatile profile, sensorial properties, and multivariate analysis

“…In comparison with the results reported in the literature, some of these compounds such as vanillin, syringaldehyde, and furfural among others were also shown to be discriminators between traditional oak barrel aging and oak chips . However, these volatile compounds led to better discrimination among both types of oak aging due to the greater concentrations found in oak wood than in acacia .…”

“…However, these volatile compounds led to better discrimination among both types of oak aging due to the greater concentrations found in oak wood than in acacia . On the other hand, other compounds such as whiskylactones or eugenol also enabled wine samples to be differentiated according to whether they had been treated in oak barrels or with oak chips . However, they were not significant discriminators in the case of acacia aging treatments due to the absence or low concentration of these compounds detected in acacia wood …”

Differentiation of Wines Treated with Wood Chips Based on Their Phenolic Content, Volatile Composition, and Sensory Parameters

“…Wines which are situated on the upper part of the graph were the richest samples in WL (Figure ). Other authors (Chira and Teissedre ; Hernández‐Orte and others ; Pizarro and others ) have also reported higher WL contents in wines aged in contact with American oak woods in comparison with other oak woods. These compounds are produced from wood lipids.…”

Oxygen desorption and oxygen transfer through oak staves and oak stave gaps: an innovative permeameter

“…Barrel aging has many beneficial effects on wine. It provides wine with up to 75 kinds of volatile compounds (Hernández-Orte et al, 2014), enhanced color stability (Fulcrand et al, 1996;Fulcrand et al, 1998;Rentzsch et al, 2007;Pechamat et al, 2014) and reduced vegetable character (Lemaire, 1995;Ghidossi et al, 2012) while enhancing organoleptic qualities. Barrel storage allows wine to undergo processes known as 'low oxidation conditions' (Vivas and Glories, 1996).…”