IT’S OFFICIAL: THE EUROPEAN UNION AUTHORIZES THE USE OF WOOD CHIPS IN WINE. BUT IN ITALY THE PRACTICE WILL ONLY BE ALLOWED FOR TABLE WINES

The delicate matter of wood chips has been concluded. The European Commission has now given the go ahead to European winemakers for the use of wood chips – with very precise conditions – to “age” their wines. This is a practice that is already commonly used among American, South African, South American and Australian producers, who export these goods onto the European market.
There will be precise labeling regulations for wines that use the wood chip method. In fact, it will be mandatory to declare their use on labels. And Italy has already indicated that it will allow this practice only for table wines, while it will be prohibited for wines with denomination of origin seals. Evidently, it is not possible to “celebrate” the newly legalized use of wood chips, but it is still a wise move to confront the issue.
The EURO has responded to a request that came from some of the main associations of French, Spanish, and Italian wine producers. In Italy, the traditional use of wood barrels for ageing wine makes up a small percentage of the entire production and it is impossible to think that these companies will all move automatically to wood chip use, which obviously gives a much lower quality result.