Wine making and re-fining in earthenware containers. An ancient practice still alive and fruitful

Wine is one of the most important agro-food products in Europe, and in Italy in particular where more than 48 million of hectoliters are produced each year. The quality of wine is due to several factors, related both to agronomic, and technological aspects; among these lasts the hygienic conditions of grapes and facilities, the process of wine making, the refining steps, the bottling and the storage conditions are prevalent. A renewed interest for the traditional, porous containers, like earthenware jars, has been recently noted in Italy and in France, and in this work preliminary results of a study undertaken in order to describe and understand the role of these clay tanks in wine making and re-fining, are presented. The differences between a 2 years old Cerasuolo wine (a typical wine produced in the southeastern Sicily) produced and re-fined in earthenware 250-400 l jars (amphora) and the same wine obtained by means of the current technology, were evaluated both by a chemical and a sensory point of view. Noticeable, but not very big, differences were observed between the two wines and all of them can be reasonably correlate to the specific performance of the clay tanks used, in terms of oxygen permeability, heat insulation and, possibly, of microorganisms selection.