Oak chips

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Oak chips can be used in the brewing of beer and the making of wine, cider and mead.

Although oak barrels have long been used by winemakers, many wineries now use oak wood chips for ageing wine more quickly and also adding desired woody aromas along with butter and vanilla flavors.

Oak barrels are very expensive, compared to wood chips. The use of chips by many New World producers has made their wines highly competitive in the marketplace. The practice was outlawed in the European Union until 2006^[1].

Oak chips can be added during fermentation or during ageing. In the latter case, they are generally placed into fabric sacks and placed into the ageing wine. The diversity of chips available gives winemakers numerous options.

Oak chips come in a variety of different types, varying in their forest of origin, in their size, the amount they are toasted, and whether they have been water pre-soaked. All these factors impact on wine character. Toasting chips gives them a smoky, bacon and caramel character. Due to their greater surface area, smaller chips give more character per unit weight added, and water pre- soaked chips are lower in astringent tannins" (Gawel, 2002).

The use of oak at fermentation is often untoasted, because the ellagitanins in the untoasted oak provide an extraction of fruit, structure, and body as well as lending a sweetness to the wine that is unrelated to sugar. Use of untoasted oak at fermentation does not endow the wine with oak flavor or aroma.

The use of oak powder is also less common than chips, although they are a very practical alternative if oak character is to be introduced during fermentation. Oak planks are sometimes used, either during fermentation or ageing.

Some people believe that wine ages better in oak barrels. This may be because barrels permit small amounts of oxygen enter and leave the wine over a long period of time. For this reason, some winemakers who don’t use barrels now employ a process called micro-oxygenation in which precise measured amounts of oxygen are added to the wine over a period of time. This is also a cost-effective substitute for oak barrels.

Because of the cost savings of producers who use barrel alternatives, they are able to be formidable competitors. Britain is the world’s largest market for exported wine. In 2000, it imported more wine from Australia than from France for the first time in history. By 2005, its share of that market rose to 24% whereas France’s share dropped to 19%. [1]

In view of France's declining share of export markets around the world, it has introduced a number of changes in rules and restrictions. A major such change is to permit wineries to use oak wood chips in order to be able to compete more effectively.[2]

The French Agriculture Minister has called for a "wine revolution" that would abolish some of the "volumes of century-old rules" that stifle creativity in the production and marketing of wine.

Nonetheless, the use of oak chips and microxygenaion are on the rise around the world not only for decreased production costs, but also for increased control and quality. For these reasons, they are becoming more and more common not only in inexpensive wine, but also in very expensive wines.