Oak in winemaking

摘要

Oak vessels have been used in winemaking for at least 2000 years, although the focus on the introduction of oak characters in wine perhaps commenced in the US in the 1960s and was taken up with great gusto by the Australian industry from the 1970s onwards. Oak vessels may be used in fermentation, for maturation of a wine and for extraction of oak flavours. Barrels include barriques (225-228 litres), puncheons (318 litres) and hogsheads (238 litres), while a port pipe is 500 litres. Oak casks, or foudres, vary between about 2000 and 12 000 litres. I prefer to use foudre, as 'cask' is also used to describe a bag-in-box container. And there is the cuve tronconique of 6000-7000 litres. A foudre is positioned horizontally, while a cuve tronconique (sawn-off cone) stands upright with a removal lid.