Refinement in wood: refinement or ageing are the terms used to indicate the slow transformation that wine undergoes in a wooden barrel. The wine acquires softness, structure and clarity, and flavours and odours evolve.

A mature product comes out, one that is ready to face up to long years of life and, indeed, will only improve with the passage of time.

Be careful, though! This is a path that cannot be followed by all wines – there needs to be the right kind of vine and a suitable quality.

Wood is part of the oldest history of wine. In the past (as still today) it was used in various phases, from vinification to transport. Back in those days, what was going on was not understood, although they could guess that wood was not simply a neutral container, and that it interacted with the wine.

They could see that wine that “stayed” in wood for some time changed its characteristics and, above all, that it didn’t need to be drunk within a few months of vinification, but that it could be kept for a longer period.

Studies in the last century gave a scientific explanation for all of this, helping us to understand how to ensure that only those positive changes come about, and that we avoid the negative ones.