The Auswine Forum

What's the difference between fruit and oak tennins?

Fruit tannins are sweet and lucious whereas oak tannin are dry and assertive.

NewGuest wrote:What's the difference between fruit and oak tennins?

I don't really know whether you tell by tasting a wine whether the tannins come from oak or the fruit, I certainly can't, although big oak flavours as well as big tannins may give a clue. Most of the tannins come from the grape skins and seeds/stalks if they play a significant part in the winemaking process, although lengthy time in new oak obviously adds a bit of tannin. Filtering / fining will reduce the tannin levels to some extent.

Of course there is the practice of adding tannins, I did hear these come from coconut shells or some such as well as being processed from grape skins/seeds or oak. You can even get "effervescent tannin tablets" now, just add one per barrel!
"Winemaking products company Laffort Oenologie has released a new twist on enological tannins. Laffort has repackaged their Quertanin product in effervescent tablets, called Quertanin Effervescent®. Quertanin is a highly purified and concentrated ellagitannin extracted from Limosin Oak (Quercus robur) heartwood. "

Here is an article that might be of interest to you

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 224647.DTL

BTW, are you a New Zealander? ie do you pronounce "tannins" the way you spelt it, twice.

It is pretty confusing.
Tannins are a range of chemical compounds with a phenol ring, widely found in nature....hence their other name "phenolics" Besides the mouth drying "tannins" it also includes red wine colour.

Fruit tannin (derived from grapes) is largely from the skins and seeds and stalks. Tannin from the skins is generally regarded as "soft", where as seed tannin can be harder. Stalks are generally regarded as green, though when you pick things really ripe ( brown seeds brown stalks) they are seen as woody. And less hard.

Oak tannins are those derived from oak and are a different range of compounds though they do react in similar ways and also react with other taninns. Which is why red wines age.

Added tannin (from chesnuts,oak , red grapes etc) can be a wonderful tool in remedial winemaking, these days we try to get everything right in the vineyard and let the wines make themselves.
Added tannin can seem hard and cardboardy (especially with age) so I haven't used them in years. They can help in gutless fruit, overcropped fruit, mouldy fruit, stabilising colour, adding palate weight etc.
Personally I reckon I can taste them, but i fiddled with them for years in other peoples wines.

Cheers
Smithy

Added tannin (from chesnuts,oak , red grapes etc) can be a wonderful tool in remedial winemaking.

well Smithy, i have heard chesnut would be great for barrels if it wasn't so prone to bleed so heavily[porous]! i remember reading good chesnut[wood i assume] can really add a charming character to the juice. Does anyone know of any winery that uses chesnut in their wine making?

The last time i had something to do with a chesnut, it ran way down the track at flemington on cup day. still trying to complete the course i believe!

cheers > dee