WineXpert Adding oak

[cimbaliw]

My 2nd batch of WE Aussie Chard is clearing and within the next week or two will rack into two 3gal carboys. One will remain untouched as the first is one of our all time favorite wines, period. As a tweak I want to add oak to the other. My current in home options are oak chips or a heavy toast hungarian oak stick. The idea of making oak tea is intriguing. Any thoughts on how to proceed with the three gallon batch? Also, does adding tannin have a similar effect to oak?

Thanks
BC

 

[SouthernChemist]

I personally would stick to oak cubes/beans or staves if you want to add more oak. Oak chips become extracted over a shorter period of time (up to a week or so) than cubes or staves (6 weeks or more). Cubes or staves will also get you closer to the quality of flavor that an oak barrel would impart. The longer extraction time gives you the advantage of being better able to control how much the oak has imparted to your wine, and this is probably even more advantageous because you're wanting to oak a white wine. You can always add more oak, but you can't remove it if you over oak.

You will get tannins from adding oak...though the amount decreases the more the oak is toasted. Oak also adds more than just structure to the wine, however, depending on how much it's toasted. That's where you'll get the vanilla, leather, roast coffee, chocolate flavors/aromas that heavily oaked wines can have.

Regardless, you will want to sample the wine over time while it is in contact with the oak to see how it is coming along. One nice thing is that you will have the other 3 gallon batch as a comparison.

 

[chrisjw]

I have boiled oak cubes to make a tea and used it to flavor a cheap Vino Italiano Chard as well as a cheap VI red. The only reason that I used tea was that the kits were cheap and I thought it would be a quick way to get a good quick table wine. I added the tea about two weeks prior to bottling. I had reduced the water originally added by a litter or so, knowing that I was going to add oak tea later. I repeatedly boiled/simmered the same cubes for 5-10 minutes, cooled the tea, added it to the wine, and then tasted it to determine if I was done. Even though the taste testing was almost immediate, the wine still required a couple of years to mellow out and begin to taste good. At 3 years they became very good table wines, better than I ever thought they would. Unfortunately, I drank most of it way before they became very good.

However, lately I have been using spirals to increase the oak flavor in my red wines. So if I was going to do it again, especially with a better wine kit, I would use 1-2 med-plus toasted French oak spiral(s) and taste it every 3-4 weeks. Even after removing the spiral(s), it is still going to take 1-2 years for the tannin to integrate with the wine.

So I do not think that using the tea speeds up the entire process. It only speeds up the tasting part of it. I have not done a side by side testing to determine if the use of tea after 2-3 years tastes the same as using a spiral. Everything that I read tells me that spirals are the way to go.

 

[Wiz]

Each year I make several 6 gallon batches of cabernet sauvignon from imported bulk Italian concentrate. First year I tested medium French, medium heavy Hungarian and heavy toast American toast oak cubes. Best flavor was the medium toast French oak cubes. Next year used medium toast French oak chips. There was no comparison to the cubes used the year before. Now I use only medium toast French cubes leaving in for 2 months.

 

[cimbaliw]

As an oak update, I did split the chard into two 3 gallon carboys. The first was untouched. To the second I added 4oz oak chips for two weeks. I took the chips out on 8/19. Tonight I did a wine thief head to head comparison. Easily, the oaked chard had more body, structure and mouth feel yet it left me wanting more. therefore instead of adding more oak to #2, I put 8oz oak chips int #1. I did this by using putting 4oz each into two 1 gallon paint strainer bag, rolled and tied them it up with monofilament. I further tied them on a long axis and ran left over mono filament through an airlock.

 

[Ricky]

looking good cim, in my aussie chard I used 1 American light oak spiral,left it in for4 months, I did what you did with the bag and fishing string,i also put a food grade ball barring in the bag so it sank.....did you add tannins also?

 

[cimbaliw]

I felt I got satisfactory tannins from the chips, in the first batch and dind't add further. Still a possibility. I do really like the split batch approach to have a comparison. the first sock 'o' oak I put in sank quickly on it's own. I was pleasantly surprised.

BC