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Study says wine should not be in casks for more than a year

A recent study by a Public University of Navarre (Spain)
student shows that wine shouldn’t be stored in a cask for more than 12
months or it risks losing some of the compounds needed to provide its
“bouquet.”

A recent study by a Public University of Navarre (Spain) student shows that wine shouldn’t be stored in a cask for more than 12 months or it risks losing some of the compounds needed to provide its “bouquet.” In defending her Ph.D. thesis, Teresa Garde Cerdán, a Doctor in Chemical Sciences, stated that the maximum concentrations of compounds transferred to wine from wood is reached after 10 to 12 months of the wine being stored in wooden casks. Her study also showed that after a year, the concentration of these compounds, positive for the aroma of the wine, in some cases began to decrease. In order to investigate the influence that the age of the barrel has on the volatile compounds transferred to the aged wine, Dr. Cerdán used French and American oak casks which had been in use for five years. From her results, it was observed that the old casks hardly ceded any volatile compounds to the aged wine. These volatiles are positive for the wine because they help develop its aroma (bouquet). While the current practice is to use barrels over many years to help stretch out the cost of them, Dr. Cerdán’s findings show that casks as young as five years are not doing their job of helping to provide aromatic compounds.