When it comes to winemaking, oak alternatives (aka barrel alternatives) can be something of an elephant in the room. Everybody uses them, but few want to admit to using them. Most winemakers already know this but, by themselves, oak alternatives are not straight substitutes for aging a wine in barrels. When used in conjunction with micro-oxygenation (MOX), winemakers can produce wines that are pretty hard to distinguish from wines that have undergone a traditional élevage. Both methods are merely tools one can use to make wine. It is the final product—the wine—that really matters. There are a few well known rules of thumb when it comes to using oak alternatives. The first is: Extraction happens more quickly than is usually expected. If what you want is oak flavor, a couple of weeks is usually long enough for chips, two months for blocks. Tank staves are generally used for extended extractions of six to nine months. It might take much longer for the oak tannins to auto-polymerize and to polymerize with the other anthocyanins, etc. In general, the actual extraction of oak aromatics into the wine is astonishingly fast. As a corollary to this rule, if you want more oak, use more oak—not more time. An extended time on or in oak isn’t really going to increase the oaky aroma in the wine. This is especially the case as the size of the oak chip or block decreases. The smaller the piece of oak, the higher the ratio between the surface area and the total volume of oak. The added time may round out the perception of the tannins on the palate, but the aging reactions should proceed, whether or not the wine continues to be exposed to the oak alternatives. The second rule of thumb is: Smaller-earlier. Larger-later. What this means is use the smaller-sized oak alternatives earlier in the winemaking process and the larger ones later. The reason for including this mnemonic is mainly operational. Loose oak powder and small chips can be added at fermentation since they can be passed through pretty much any wine processing equipment that can deal with must. The final rule of thumb is: Small for the nose, large for the palate. This is something of an accepted rule of thumb. This is generally true for relatively late additions of oak—that is, for finishing and tuning wines. However, the difference between the oak additions in different formats decreases as the wine gets older. You can see our entire line of Stainless Steel Wine Barrels and find the oak alternative that best fits your winemaking process.
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