You'll always extract the oak flavor when in contact with the liquid. Your
local shop was hopefully intending that you'd get a stronger extract from
the chips due to the vigorous (and thus turbulent) action of initial
fermentation.

I just added cubes to a 1 year old Marechal Foch to help the topping up and
get oak character. There's no reason you cannot...

"Alfonse" > wrote in message
...
> Hi,
> I was wondering if adding oak chips to a batch of red wine that bulk aging
> would be ok. The wine is 4 months old and was made from grapes. A local
wine
> place said its too late. They usually add it to (kit) wine during
> fermentation.
> Thanks
>
>