Trees with tighter grain produce barrels that impart fewer tannins than those made from more porous or wider grain trees. And there is also the issue of charring, where the inside of the finished barrel is fired, often to a winemakers personal specifications, in order to release further taste components into the finished wine. High char will add to the wine notes of toast and spice, while low char wines may taste oaky or woody . As the study of wine and oak progresses, winemakers will continue to push the envelope with new ideas. And all this is sure to guarantee that they ll be plenty of oak talk on the back of our wine bottles for some time to come.
Most wine lovers are aware that grapes become wine once fermentation has turned sugar into alcohol.
The juice and the crushed grape skins remain together in a vat during maceration when color, tannins and flavor elements are extracted into the juice. The skins are removed after fermentation is complete. Just like red, only the maceration period is shorter as the desired color is paler, and the skins are removed prior to fermentation. After crushing and a very limited period of skin contact to absorb flavor, the juice is pressed off and fermented alone in a tank or in a barrel on its yeast lees. Yeast can be man-made, called cultured yeasts, or they can be wild yeasts.