FRENCH WINEMAKERS SNEAKING WOOD CHIPS

We all know how many of the old world winemakers, particularly French, feel about new world winemaking practices, specifically the use of wood chips. It’s comparable to the way your grandmother feels about young ladies in mini-skirts. Well, according to an article in wineinternational.com by Sophie Kevany, many French winemakers are using wood chips on the sly before the government outlaws it. Since then, sales of woodchips to winemakers in Bordeaux have increased by as much as 200%.

While a draft was written last November to ban the use of woodchips in AOC winemaking, it has yet to be signed into a law. Until then, winemakers are following EU regulations that allow woodchips “post fermentation.”

The article states that while woodchips have helped increase sales, many winemakers are using the taboo substance on the sneak. Why? Because winemakers either do not want their neighbor to find out and look down on them, or they don’t want their fellow winemakers to take up the same practice and increase sales.