Environmental Impact of Wine Aging Process in Oak Barrels in Wineries of La Rioja (Spain)

Abstract

The primary objective of winemaking companies is to produce quality wines, with aging playing a fundamental role in the vinification process. This paper presents a gate-to-gate life cycle analysis of the productive processes involved in aging one liter of wine in Quercus alba and Quercus petraea oak barrels for six months. The research was undertaken using 225 L, 300 L, and 500 L barrels. In the Global Warming-GWP100 category of impact, aging in 225-L barrels has an environmental impact of 3.27 kg CO₂ eq./L of wine for every liter aged for six months in Q. alba and 3.18 E-02 kg CO₂ eq./L of wine for Q. petraea. The same aging in 300-L and 500-L barrels has environmental impacts of 2.21 kg CO₂ eq./L of wine and 1.58E-02 kg CO₂ eq./L of wine, respectively, for Q. alba. These last values are reduced to 2.18 E-02 kg CO₂ eq./L of wine and 1.53 E-02 kg CO₂ eq./L of wine for Q. petraea species.