tannins, oak barrels?

[brewskiez]

When making wine do you first do the primary fermentation and then transfer the wine into oak barrels or do you just start in the barrel?

Is it common to add wood chips if not barrel soaking?

 

[jgmillr1]

Red wines are generally fermented in the primary, pressed into a secondary to settle and finally moved into barrels for aging. For red grape juice you could ferment in the barrel but you would want to rack it out for cleaning so you don't have a thick layer of yeast on the bottom. Not sure you would gain anything since you'll age it there anyway and it is a lot harder to clean a barrel out than a primary. No need for the toasted chips if its going in the barrel unless the barrel has been used for over 3-yrs and is essentially neutral oak. Of course you could add some chips toasted to a different level than your barrel to add some complexity.

Some white wines (eg. Chardonnay) are fermented in new barrels to break them and get a quick oak extraction into the wine. Other whites (eg. Sauv Blanc) are aged in neutral oak and periodically stirred for sur-lie aging.

You just have to watch oak over-extraction, oxidation, and excessive lees in the bottom barrel autolyzing (H2S formation).