Or how do they prevent it from rotting for such a long period of time.
I cant imagine that they use multiple wooden barrels during an aging proces of 30 years or so. Because it would interupt the proces, I geuss?
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Alcohol kills any bacteria that would eat away at the barrel. Also barrels aren normally treated for it and air tight, not allowing foreign substance to be introduced.
Not only do they not replace the barrels but they can even reuse the barrels even after 30+ years. Firstly they are stored in very dry and dark places. Life needs water to survive, even bacteria and fungi. There are technically water in the content but this is mixed with a lot of alcohol which is lethal in those concentrations. So bacteria, fungi and insects could not survive from it. Secondly wood contain very little nitrites. These are extremely important for all life to build proteins and for the chemical processes in the cell. Especially for bacteria they need a lot of it. But the cells in wood do very little chemical processes and are mostly just structural so they contain a lot of carbon and very little nitrogen. That means that even when fungi or bacteria is able to start attacking the wood it quickly runs out of nitrogen compounds and need a secondary source. This is why wood often rots from the bottom as the fungi can bring nitrites from the soil. But these barrels are stored in stone basements and even then are stored off the floor.
Would you be interested to know that the coal we dig out of the ground is compressed wood but it was from before bacteria knew how to decompose wood. So the wood just piled high on top of each other and compressed into coal (it did not rot).
Alcohol kills bacteria.
At a recent wine tasting in Serbia, they said the barrels are burned on the inside and that provides protection against rot (as well as adding flavours). They also said they can only use the barrels for 2 years before the wine has extracted all the compounds it needs from the wood, at which point they sell them to whisky distillers.
Becouse there is the chemical balance tilted, so only bacteria that are needed to make alcohol out of it will live through that. Things that would usually take over and do the rotting can’t live there. Things don’t rot by themselves, there is fungus and bacteria doing it, and they need usual environment to live. There is ton of CO2 created in that process, that taxes O2 away, that’s main cause of death of things in this kind of basement, including people.
Barrels are rotted by microorganisms, which cannot survive in alcohol, especially on in the concentrations of any alcohol you would want to age. Take whiskey for instance. Whiskey can be as much as 60% or 70% alcohol while it’s aging, which is plenty to kill any microbe.
Wood rots when it is subjected to dry and wet cycles. If dry it will never rot and if wet it will never rot
Some of the most valuable wood is ancient. Old wood beams from hundred year old buildings are prize salvage.
That said, barrels are filled with high proof alcohol which we know from the pandemic is an anti=ceptic and a preservative.
Wood rots when it has contact with soil with its bugs, bacteria and fungi. Houses are built with a lot of wood, but they make sure that is separated from the soil with a cement, or brick foundation.
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