Wood Influence

If a wine is fermented or matured in a wooden container, many different aspects of that container may shape its character and flavour, quite apart from those compounds that may be directly extracted from the oak wood and absorbed into the wine as wood flavour (see oak flavour). The most obvious advantage of holding a wine in wood (see barrel maturation and cask ageing) rather than in an inert material is that wood encourages natural clarification and stabilization. The precise influence of a wooden container on any wine held in it is a function of the way that wine was made as well as of the following aspects.