Abstract
The majority of published work has studied the impact of wood chips on red wine composition by conducting analyses during wood chip contact or immediately after the removal of chips from wine. Less attention has been directed at the potential influence of prior chip-wine contact on the further phenolic and sensory evolution of red wines during bottle storage. Therefore, this work focuses on the evolution over a period of 18 months of several phenolic parameters and sensory characteristics of bottled Touriga Nacional red wines that had previously been in contact with toasted wood chips from cherry (Prunus avium) and two oak species (Quercus pyrenaica and Quercus pubescens) during 30 days of pre-bottling storage. Various global phenolic parameters, colour properties, individual anthocyanin content and sensory profile of the wines were studied at 6, 12 and 18 months of bottle storage. The results showed less decrease in the phenolic composition and red colour of wines which had prior contact with oak chips, as well as a less developed brown colour during bottle storage, compared to the wine previously in contact with cherry chips and the control wine. In addition, wine previously in contact with cherry chips always showed an evolution similar to the control wine. From a sensory point of view, the wines previously in contact with oak wood chips showed a tendency for higher aroma scores for “vanilla” and “coconut” descriptors and lower scores for “brown colour” during bottle storage than wines previously in contact with cherry chips and the control wine. The outcomes of this research could be of practical interest to winemakers since they could improve the knowledge of the impact of prior contact with wood chips in the future evolution of the red wines during bottle storage.
Highlights
The possibility of the use of wood fragments in wine production, including during the aging process, has emerged
The present study aims to evaluate several global phenolic parameters, individual anthocyanins and the sensory profile evolution of red wines stored in bottles for 18 months after having previously been in contact with oak and cherry wood chips for 30 days
The higher proportion of acetylated anthocyanins compared to coumarylated forms corresponds to a higher red colour stability and a tendency for higher red colour values, as well as for lower colour hue values. This fact could help to explain the results shown in Figure 4, in which the highest colour intensity and coloured anthocyanins values and lower values of colour hue can be observed for the wines with the highest ratios of total acetylated/coumarylated derivatives after 18 months of bottle storage in comparison with the control wine and wine with prior cherry wood chip contact
Summary
The possibility of the use of wood fragments in wine production, including during the aging process, has emerged This option only became possible, for example, in Europe after the publication of EEC regulation in 2006, more recently modified by the EEC Regulation N° 2019/934 of 12 March 2019 (Appendix 7), which changed previous rules about the use of pieces of oak for winemaking and the description and presentation of wine undergoing this treatment. It states that the pieces of oak wood used for winemaking and aging must exclusively come from the Quercus genus and be used at different toasting levels or without toasting. According to Bordać s et al (2019), this is one of the most abundant tree species in central and south eastern European forests, as well as in the Anatolia region
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