| Summary: | Wood is one of the most highly valued materials in enology since the chemical composition and sensorial properties of wine change significantly when in contact with it. The need for wood in cooperage and the concern of enologists in their search for new materials to endow their wines with a special personality has generated interest in the use of other <i>Quercus</i> genus materials different from the traditional ones (<i>Q. petraea</i>, <i>Q. robur</i> and <i>Q. alba</i>) and even other wood genera. Thereby, species from same genera such as <i>Q. pyrenaica</i> Willd., <i>Q. faginea</i> Lam., <i>Q. humboldtti</i> Bonpl., <i>Q. oocarpa</i> Liebm., <i>Q. stellata</i> Wangenh, <i>Q. frainetto</i> Ten., <i>Q. lyrata</i> Walt., <i>Q. bicolor</i> Willd. and other genera such as <i>Castanea sativa</i> Mill. (chestnut), <i>Robinia pseudoacacia</i> L. (false acacia), <i>Prunus avium</i> L. and <i>P.</i> <i>cereaus</i> L. (cherry), <i>Fraxinus excelsior</i> L. (European ash) and <i>F. americana</i> L. (American ash) have been studied with the aim of discovering whether they could be a new reservoir of wood for cooperage. This review aims to summarize the characterization of tannin and low molecular weight phenol compositions of these alternative woods for enology in their different cooperage stages and compare them to traditional oak woods, as both are essential to proposing their use in cooperage for aging wine.
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