Oak dosage on white wines: how do you know?

How do you dose oak on a white wine? By listening to the grape variety. A Sauvignon Blanc is content with 50 g of oak per hectolitre. A Chardonnay can take up to 350 g/hL.

Between the two, everything comes down to one simple question: what might the oak hide? The finer and more fragile the variety's aroma, the more discreet the oak must stay. The more discreet the variety, the more emotion has to be sought, and oak can carry it.

One caution before starting: these doses are starting points, not rules. Vintage, ripeness, acidity, lees, yeasts, toast of the wood, format, contact time: the variables are many and the special cases countless. Only tasting, on your own wine, decides.

The essentials in one table

AMEDEE starting doses, in grams of oak per hectolitre of wine, built by tasting. A 7 mm stave weighs 200 g, an 18 mm stave weighs 500 g. Finishing tannin powder: equivalences from our conversion table, that is 1.3 g/hL per 100 g/hL of oak; the 0.7 g/hL value for 50 g/hL is calculated at the same ratio. Marsanne, Trebbiano, Xarel·lo, Aligoté, Albillo, Grüner Veltliner and Assyrtiko: we found no published data solid enough to classify them; run a trial.

Chips, staves, tannins: three ways to bring in oak

The dose is counted in grams of oak, but the result also depends on the form in which the wood enters the wine. The three approaches do not give the same wine.

• Chips: a large surface of wood in contact with the wine, hence fast extraction. 1 month minimum, 2 to 3 months for full extraction. In an infusion bag, they come out the day the wine has taken enough.
• Staves: thicker, they release the wood slowly. 4 months minimum at 7 mm, 7 months at 18 mm. An 18 mm stave, wetted on both faces, behaves like a barrel stave wetted on one side only. A long contact at a moderate dose gives a better integrated oak than a short contact at a high dose.
• Tannins: they do not seek the same effect. Oak ellagitannins are barely perceptible on the nose; they protect aromas and colour against oxidation. The dose is fine and the effect reads within 8 to 10 days: this is the tool for adjustment and finishing.

Chips and staves build the oak; tannin refines it.

Thiol varieties: oak with a light hand

Sauvignon Blanc, Verdejo, Muscadet, Colombard, Petit and Gros Manseng, Scheurebe. Their signature is boxwood, grapefruit, passion fruit. Lively aromas, recognisable anywhere, yet carried by molecules present in trace amounts. A little too much oak, and they fade.

Starting point: 50 g/hL, that is 0.7 g/hL of finishing tannin powder. A touch of wood that supports the wine without covering its fruit.

Terpene varieties: let the flowers speak

Muscat, Gewurztraminer, Riesling, Viognier, Torrontés, Albariño, Vermentino, aromatic Malvasias. Flowers, rose, citrus, the apricot of Viognier: their perfume is more generous, and it is what we look for in the glass.

Starting point: 50 to 100 g/hL, that is 0.7 to 1.3 g/hL of finishing tannin powder. The oak accompanies, it does not take over.

Neutral varieties: where oak can express itself

Chardonnay, Chenin, Semillon, Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc, Furmint, Godello, and a fine Italian family: Arneis, Greco, Fiano, Garganega. Their varietal aroma is discreet: this is where emotion must be sought, and oak can carry it. This is the family with the widest choice of styles:

• 50 to 150 g/hL (0.7 to 2 g/hL of tannin powder): taut, luminous oak, and a wine that keeps its crystal-clear look: the taut, mineral Chardonnay.
• From 150 g/hL (2 g/hL of tannin powder): the wine gradually takes on a buttery side, with an evolution of its colour. It loses its crystal-clear look for increasingly straw, then golden hues, in keeping with that buttery side. For a Chardonnay, it is an invitation to gastronomy.
• 350 g/hL (4.7 g/hL of tannin powder): the equivalent of a new barrel.

One piece of advice: a discreet variety shows oak very quickly. Start low, taste, then go up.

Three steps to get it right

1. Choose the moment. Added during fermentation, the wood gives a more discreet, better integrated oak. On finished wine, a sharper oak.
2. Give it time. Fine chips: 1 month minimum, 2 to 3 months for full extraction. 7 mm staves: 4 months minimum. 18 mm staves: 7 months minimum.
3. Judge later. The oak keeps evolving after the wood is removed. Aim slightly below target, wait 4 to 6 weeks, then taste.

What the dose does not change: the profile

The grape variety and the target style decide the quantity of wood; the character of the oak, vanilla, pastry, spice or roast, comes from the toast. Doubling the dose of a lightly toasted wood does not give a roasted profile: it gives the same profile, more marked. To choose the profile, see the Primary Colors range.

When the story goes wrong in the cellar

The Sauvignon gets the Chardonnay's dose. Often because the Chardonnay was worked first and the dose stuck. Putting into a Sauvignon the 350 g/hL of a Chardonnay oaked like a new barrel is seven times the target dose: new-barrel oak where a touch of wood was wanted, and oak cannot be taken back out: the only fix is blending with an unoaked wine.

The oak is judged on the day of removal. It seems too light, more wood goes in, and a few weeks later the wine overshoots the target. If an adjustment is still needed, it is done with a finishing tannin, whose dose is finer.

Check it on your wine

A table gives an average; your wine has its own acidity and structure. The AMEDEE Lab dosage simulator works out the dose in grams and in units for your volume, format by format. For a finishing tannin adjustment, run our drop-by-drop trial on a sample. To receive oak chip samples, write to us.

Going further: what the science says

Everything above rests on published work. Here are the details, with full references at the end of the article.

The thiols

The aroma of Sauvignon Blanc rests largely on varietal thiols. In a model solution, their perception thresholds are 0.8 ng/L for 4MMP (boxwood, broom), 4.2 ng/L for 3MH acetate (passion fruit) and 60 ng/L for 3MH (grapefruit) (Tominaga et al., 1998 and 2000). The same thiols exceed their threshold in some Colombard and Petit Manseng wines (Tominaga et al., 2000). Scheurebe owes its typicity to 4MMP (Guth, 1997). 3MH exceeds its threshold in every Muscadet analysed (Schneider et al., 2003). Verdejo is described as a thiol variety, with 4MMP above its threshold (Ruiz et al., 2018), and Gros Manseng serves as a model variety for 3MH production (Dournes et al., 2023).

Against these notes, oak weighs heavily. In mixtures of wine odorants, when a woody note and a fruity note have the same intensity, the woody note dominates (Atanasova et al., 2005). In acidic, oxidising conditions, oak ellagitannins also trap 3MH (Petit et al., 2015), a result of chemistry in a model medium. Hence 50 g/hL: a touch of wood that supports the wine without covering its thiols.

The terpenes

These varieties owe their floral aroma to free monoterpenes: linalool, geraniol, nerol. The reference classification separates Muscats, up to 6 mg/L of free monoterpenes, non-Muscat aromatic varieties, from 1 to 4 mg/L, and neutral varieties (Mateo and Jiménez, 2000). Across 148 commercial wines, total free monoterpenes reach 1,261 µg/L for Torrontés, 1,205 µg/L for Muscat, 300 µg/L for Gewurztraminer, 201 µg/L for Viognier and 168 µg/L for Riesling, against 28 µg/L for Chardonnay (Song et al., 2018). In Viognier, linalool, geraniol and nerol carry the apricot note (Siebert et al., 2018). In aromatic Malvasia di Candia, linalool exceeds its threshold (Montevecchi et al., 2015). Albariño is described as an aromatic variety dominated by linalool and geraniol (Diéguez et al., 2003). Vermentino is a light terpene variety: 36.9 µg/L of linalool on average, against 46.5 µg/L for Gewurztraminer in the same study (Luzzini et al., 2026).

The aroma is more abundant than that of thiols, but it remains a varietal aroma that oak can cover. The dose therefore rises to 50 to 100 g/hL, from a touch of wood to light oak.

Neutral varieties and the buttery note

Chardonnay is classed among neutral varieties: its aroma does not depend on free monoterpenes (Mateo and Jiménez, 2000; Wei et al., 2021). In Chenin Blanc grapes from three sites, followed at several ripeness stages, no measurable terpene was found (Augustyn and Rapp, 1985). For Semillon, the families of volatile compounds are essentially the same as in Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc (Sefton et al., 1996); we class it among neutral varieties on the basis of our tastings. A botrytised Semillon is a separate case: it contains thiols above their threshold (Tominaga et al., 2000).

The same profile applies to Pinot Gris, 39.7 µg/L of free terpenes (Song et al., 2018); to Pinot Blanc, whose typical wines are dominated by esters (Philipp et al., 2020); to Furmint, described as non-aromatic (Rusjan et al., 2012); to Godello, 11.7 µg/L of free terpenes in the grape against 6,361 µg/L for Moscatel (Díaz-Fernández et al., 2023); and to Airén (Pérez-Navarro et al., 2020). In Italy, Arneis, Greco, Garganega, Ribolla and Fiano stay below 11 µg/L of linalool (Luzzini et al., 2026). Verdicchio contains 3MH above its threshold, but its contribution remains negligible at tasting (Carlin et al., 2022). Roussanne has only been studied on one site and one vintage: 4.2 µg/L of linalool in the wine (Ma et al., 2026).

These varieties have little varietal aroma to protect. They therefore accept the whole range, from 50 to 350 g/hL, from a touch of wood to the equivalent of a new barrel. But the same lack of varietal aroma makes oak legible from small doses: in a white, the nose perceives cis-whisky lactone from 24 µg/L (Brown et al., 2006).

Below 150 g/hL, the oak stays free of butter: this is the zone of a taut, mineral Chardonnay. From 150 g/hL, our tastings find a buttery side on these whites. It is not a fault for every style: it suits a rich, buttery Chardonnay. The butter molecule in wine is diacetyl, produced by yeasts and above all by the bacteria of malolactic fermentation (Martineau et al., 1995; Bartowsky et al., 2002). Its perception threshold is 0.2 mg/L in a Chardonnay (Martineau et al., 1995). To our knowledge, no published study shows that oak increases its content. The shift from crystal-clear to straw then golden hues, from 150 g/hL, is an observation from our tastings.

Why a white wine takes a low dose

A white has almost nothing to screen the oak. It contains on average 108 mg/L of polyphenols, against 1,545 mg/L for a red (Stratil et al., 2008). What leaves the wood reaches the nose almost unfiltered, and the nose is more sensitive there: the perception threshold of natural cis-whisky lactone, the coconut note of oak, is 24 µg/L in a white against 57 µg/L in a red (Brown et al., 2006). For reds, see our conversion table.

What yeasts do to oak

The timing of the addition changes the result again. During alcoholic fermentation, yeasts transform part of the oak compounds: furfural into furfuryl alcohol (Marsal et al., 1988), vanillin into vanillyl alcohol, which has little odour (Prida and Chatonnet, 2010). Whites fermented and aged on lees in barrel contain only about one third of the vanillin measured in a model solution (Spillman et al., 1997).

At the same dose, an addition during fermentation therefore gives a more discreet, better integrated oak, and an addition on finished wine a sharper one. The French wine institute IFV recommends the early addition for whites and rosés.

Contact time

With an addition during fermentation, the count goes on after fermentation ends: the chips stay in contact with the finished wine until the month is reached. The oak keeps evolving after the wood is removed. Aim slightly below target at removal, then wait 4 to 6 weeks before judging.

What the regulations say

• In the United States, 27 CFR 24.185 allows natural wine to be treated by contact with wood in the form of barrels, staves, chips or particles, toasted or charred, and not otherwise treated.
• For wines sold in the EU or in OIV member countries, only wood of the genus Quercus is allowed, without charring or additives, in pieces of which at least 95% by weight are retained by a 2 mm sieve (OIV, resolution OENO 3/2005; EU Delegated Regulation 2019/934).
• In the European Union, a wine made with oak pieces cannot carry terms such as "fermented in barrel" or "aged in barrel", even if barrels were also used (EU Delegated Regulation 2019/33, Article 53).
• Some French AOC specifications forbid oak pieces. For any protected designation, check its rules before any addition.

Frequently asked questions

How many g/L of oak chips for a white wine?

From 0.5 to 3.5 g/L depending on the target oak level, that is 50 to 350 g/hL or 4.2 to 29.2 lb per 1,000 gal: 0.5 g/L for a touch of wood, 3.5 g/L for the equivalent of a new barrel.

How much oak for a Sauvignon Blanc?

50 g of oak per hectolitre, for a touch of wood that does not cover the thiols of the variety.

How much oak for a Chardonnay?

From 50 to 350 g/hL depending on the style. Below 150 g/hL, taut and luminous oak, for a taut, mineral Chardonnay. From 150 g/hL, a buttery side, which suits a rich, buttery Chardonnay.

How much does a stave weigh?

A 7 mm stave weighs 200 g, an 18 mm stave weighs 500 g. Finishing tannin powder: equivalences from our conversion table, that is 1.3 g/hL per 100 g/hL of oak; the 0.7 g/hL value for 50 g/hL is calculated at the same ratio. For 150 g/hL of oak, that is 0.75 of a 7 mm stave or 0.3 of an 18 mm stave per hectolitre.

How long should oak chips stay in a white wine?

1 month minimum for fine chips, 2 to 3 months to reach the extraction plateau.

Should oak chips go in during or after fermentation?

During fermentation, the oak is more discreet and better integrated. After, it is sharper. The choice depends on the target style.

Can an over-oaked white be fixed?

Oak cannot be taken back out. The only fix is blending with an unoaked wine.

Sources

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