Source: French oak
Wood Age: 24 months
Toast Level: Medium plus
Size: 59 gallons

Toastiness in the wines from all of the barrels, as measured by Hmf (light creamy toffee) and furfural (burnt acrid toastiness), is shown in Figure 2. The bar chart shows that the Hmf level in the samples is very similar, only the Côte d’Or being a little lower. The World Cooperage Traditional toast barrel had the highest furfural level; this is true to type. Clearly all of these barrels created generous amounts of toastiness and all of the new special profiles were like the Legacy toast, particularly in respect to the Hmf content and relative amount of light creamy toast to dark heavy toastiness.

Figure 3 shows the ellagic acid content of the barrelled wines.

Figure 3. Ellagic acid in the Beaulieu Chardonnay samples (in parts per million)

The results show that the water bent Profile WCC P1 has a little more tannin breakdown than its parent Legacy toast. However the highest level of tannin breakdown still occurs in the Côte d’Or, followed by WCC P3 which was subjected to more intense initial heating than any of the other products.

Figure 4 shows the vanillin content in the wines. Although there are trends that can be related back to the toasting process, all of the levels are very low, probably below threshold, and unlikely to influence flavor at this time. These wines were, of course, barrel fermented which does lead to assimilation of vanillin in the initial stages of barrelling.

Figure 4. Vanillin in the Beaulieu Chardonnay samples (in parts per million)

Figure 5 shows the levels of guaiacol, a sweet-smoke aromatic that is often a feature of barrel matured Chardonnays. These results show a major difference between the Côte d’Or and the other barrel samples. The Côte d’Or and special toast WCC P3 are characterized by much more intense heat application during toasting. This manifests itself here in significantly higher sweet smoke character.

Figure 5. Guaiacol in Beaulieu Chardonnay samples (in parts per million)

Spiciness as characterized by 4-methyl guaiacol is shown in Figure 6. Like the guaiacol smokiness, this compound is formed when sufficient heat is applied to break the oak lignin down beyond vanillin and related phenolic aldehydes. The effect is clearly demonstrated in

Figure 6. Figure 6. 4-methyl guaiacol (spice) in the Beaulieu barrel fermented Chardonnay samples (in parts per million)