Economic-environmental impact analysis of alternative systems for red wine ageing in re-used barrels

Abstract

When wood comes into contact with wine, organoleptic properties valued in oenology are generated, which are lost over time and barrels use, so alternative processes are currently used into old barrels as adding wood chips, sticks and staves for keep those properties; however, the environmental and economic impact of the use of these alternatives is not known. This article presents a life cycle assessment(LCA) and economic analysis for those common alternative process used for keep organoleptic properties, but using barrels additives from Quercus alba and Quercus petraea wood. The ISO 14040 standard is employed for the LCA in Simapro® software, making use of the CML-IA baseline V3.04/EU25 methodology and for the economic analysis the production cost is used. The results indicate that aggregating wood chips to recover the organoleptic properties on wine is the alternative that generates less environmental impact and the least expensive, while the highest environmental impact and cost are produced when using wood slaves. On the other hand, additives from Quercus alba wood are less expensive and present low environmental impact in relation to those from Quercus petraea.