The mystique of oak chips

Wines & Vines, Sept, 1996 by Larry Walker

"In tastings we've done, the toasted boards come real close to wine put in barrels and is superior to any oak chip product," he said.

The cost is about $200 for 1,000 gallons of wine, but that is for one usage. Monroe said it was possible to get four uses from the boards, although the amount of oak would fall off sharply after two uses.

For World Cooperage chips, the cost would be 85-cents a pound with about 40 pounds per 1,000 gallons used.

Burton said he believes chips will become even more popular and will be a fixture of the wine industry because of the ease of use and the growing costs of new cooperage, especially in the fighting varietal category.

(It does seem that the use of chips in that price range is virtually universal, if unacknowledged.)

In his speech to the International Oak Symposium, Burton outlined the methods of using chips:

"Chips can be introduced in several ways. They can be simply dumped into the wine where they will sink in a couple of days and the wine can be racked off, although the thoughts of chips and impellers make most winemakers nervous.

"A more sophisticated method used by several large users of chips is to fit cone-shaped stainless steel screens over the drain fittings and the wine can be racked easily.

"One user has stainless steel inserts that fit in the man way of the tank inside the door where the drain fitting is located. After draining, the door is opened, the strainer is removed, and the chips, lees, and residues can easily be hosed out.

"The most common method, however, is the 'teabag' method. A bag of cheese-cloth is made up to hold the chips and can be dipped and removed easily. One winery is using mesh bags made for staining paint. They come in several sizes, are reusable, and easy to sterilize. This is easy in bulk, but the problems of individual barrel use are obvious. We've experimented with a reusable nylon open mesh sausage' attached to a bung, but stuffing the thing is difficult. The last method is to make an extract and back-blend." Many winemakers add chips during the fermentation process, feeling the oak character is comparable to that achieved by barrel fermentation. An oak adjustment can also be made just before bottling.

Burton has talked to a number of winemakers about establishing guidelines. He has found most use chips in the range of 10 to 15 pounds per thousand gallons, although there is wide variation. Some suppliers recommend from 10 pounds up to 60 pounds for red table wine.

The length of time chips should be left in the wine also varies considerably. According to Burton, some published literature suggests that extraction is complete in a few days but some winemakers leave chips in the wine as long as five weeks. Based on costs at Barrel Builders, Burton estimates that a reasonably complex oak character can be added to a thousand gallons of wine for about $25.

Cellulo Co. offers a chip product called OAK-MOR, which is made from American white oak, quercus alba. It comes in four styles, regular, which has distinct white oak flavor and aroma character, special, more refined and subtle, premium which has more of the character of European oak and a toasted style.