To Breathe or not to Breathe

[SleepyDave]

The recent thread about 5 litre PET water bottles raises again the interesting subject of air permeability of wine storage containers.
I read somewhere that "aging of wine is primarily an oxidation process" but that "different wines need more or less oxygen to reach their peak". My understanding is that full bodied, tannic red wines benefit from a long period of oxygenation but light fruity whites will only be damaged by oxidation. Also, that oak barrels provide "micro-oxygenation" and even corks in a bottled wine allow some air into the wine. Cellar Rat uses HDPE to age his reds more quickly and there have been previous threads discussing the role of racking to provide oxygen to a wine aging in glass carboys.
Winemakers are frequently advised to age their wines as long as possible, especially reds, but there is a lot of scientific research available these days for the oxygen requirements of a particular wine to be better assessed.
I'm trying to improve my own approach and am having interesting results keeping kit red wines in 25 litre HDPE fermenters with oak for 3 to 6 months. And I'm planning on getting some oak barrels soon for my grape wines.
I just wondered what approach others are taking to this subject.

[RTPFUN]

So much to read on this one that it can be confusing as even the experts and manufacturers disagree. I've gone the rout of believing the esterfication idea is the way forward to a soft fruity red wine. So for me glass and corks and plenty of time to let the acids tannin and esters play out their chemical games. However there are some manufactures that blow oxygen into their wine to age it faster and some that pass high voltage electricity through it! Although I’m not suggesting that you wire your kit up to the national grid!! I'm a bit old school and oxygen is my enemy or so I've been told.

[Cellar_Rat]

It also depends on whether you are bulk storing all bottling.

[SiSandrine]

Well on the Better Bottles (Karl's equivalent). I have had some Merlot from 2011 in there since it finished fermenting (in 2011). It has been oaked and also racked a couple of times since then. I intend to bottle soon but it is currently lovely (I will bring a bottle to Grapefest). I have not had any issues with these containers of over oxygenation. I read all about them using the manufacturers data sheets etc and it left me reasonably convinced that no bad will come of clean wine stored in them. Probably poor wine hygiene is the biggest enemy but that would happen in any container.
I went through a spell (a few years ago) of using plastic milk bottles to ensure I had enough topping up wine. In a short period of time (a few weeks) I found these to over oxidise the wine in them.

[Cellar_Rat]

The recent thread about 5 litre PET water bottles raises again the interesting subject of air permeability of wine storage containers.
I read somewhere that "aging of wine is primarily an oxidation process" but that "different wines need more or less oxygen to reach their peak". My understanding is that full bodied, tannic red wines benefit from a long period of oxygenation but light fruity whites will only be damaged by oxidation. Also, that oak barrels provide "micro-oxygenation" and even corks in a bottled wine allow some air into the wine. Cellar Rat uses HDPE to age his reds more quickly and there have been previous threads discussing the role of racking to provide oxygen to a wine aging in glass carboys.
Winemakers are frequently advised to age their wines as long as possible, especially reds, but there is a lot of scientific research available these days for the oxygen requirements of a particular wine to be better assessed.
I'm trying to improve my own approach and am having interesting results keeping kit red wines in 25 litre HDPE fermenters with oak for 3 to 6 months. And I'm planning on getting some oak barrels soon for my grape wines.
I just wondered what approach others are taking to this subject.

Cripes there is a lot here........

All wines need oxygen - it is the ammount that varies. Wines NEED to breathe.

All air(21% oxygen) that enters wine does not necessarily oxidise the wine. Some will bind molecularly to round off the tannins. So yes there is a lot of benefits to reds.

"micro-oxygenation" as a phrase is best kept for referring to the dosage device for stainless tanks which are trying to replicate the "breathing" effect of oak barrels.

Personally I would AVOID BARRELS - there carry a lot of risk/management overhead. They will become useless for wine surprizingly quickly and then have a negative effect.
Use oak staves and 25l HDPE cans.