Just as with fine brandies and single malt scotch whiskies, most fine cachaças are aged in wooden barrels for at least a year, many for as long as three or four years and some for as long as seven to ten years. This aging process yields a cachaça with a smoother taste while, at the same time, imparting a yellowish or caramel color. However, more than a few Brazilian cachaça connoisseurs prefer cachaças that are aged for no more than a year or two. Why? Simply because the longer a cachaça is aged (in whatever type of wood), the mellower it becomes but the more it takes on the taste of the wood and the less it tastes like 'real cachaça'. There is some validity to this argument among many cachaça aficionados. The taste of 'real cachaça' is also the reason that fine, aged cachaças are not the best for making a really good caipirinha. In fact, using a fine, aged cachaça to make a caipirinha is almost a sacrilege that the cachaça gods would certainly frown upon!