Volatile Composition of Toasted Oak Chips and Staves and of Red Wine Aged with Them

Abstract

The evolution of the wood-released aromatic composition of a Spanish wine artificially aged with chips and staves of Spanish oak (Quercus pyrenaica), French oak (Quercus petraea), and American oak (Quercus alba) was studied by GC–MS. The volatile composition of the oak wood was also studied. The wines aged with Spanish Q. pyrenaica oak evolved similar to those with French and American oak, with slight differences in their oak-derived characteristics. The size of the wood pieces appeared to influence the volatile composition of the wines more than the oak species. Nevertheless, each type of wood and piece size showed particular extraction kinetics. Wines aged with chips become stable after 70 days of contact with the wood, showing standardization after longer times. The wines aged with staves evolved during the entire contact length and in the bottle. This evolution occurred slowly, probably because of the slowness of wine penetration into the wood, the concentration gradient between wine and wood, and the important contribution of the compounds that toasted staves can provide. In general, the differences in oak-related volatile compounds among wines were those expected, taking into account the volatile composition of the woods used to age wine, and they confirm the importance of analyzing the volatile composition of oak wood pieces before contact with wine. The wine treated with Spanish oak had more cis-β-methyl-γ-octalactone and eugenol than the same wine treated with French and American oak, especially when staves were used.