Oak, the secret ingredient in every wine.

Have you ever wondered why do wines get aged in oak barrels? In today's post we are going to try and answer this question. Many love it, and many hate it but, let me clarify this right here and now: oak barrels are an integral part of both ancient and modern winemaking.

Before there were glass bottles, we are talking of more than 4 centuries ago, most wines were stored and sold in wooden barrels. And, while we’ve outgrown the necessity for barrels to store and transport wine, we’ve come to acquire a taste for the wood. Oak adds flavor compounds to the wine, it enriches it. Did you ever taste aromas of vanilla, clove, smoke and coconut in your 'Gran Reserva'? Those notes probably come from the oak that was used to age it. The wood allows the slow ingress of oxygen into the wine, this is the process which makes wine taste smoother and less astringent. It provides a suitable environment for certain metabolic reactions to occur (specifically Malolactic Fermentation) which makes wines taste creamier.

Although this relationship between wine and oak was born accidentally during the long voyages that were made to transport wine around the world, over time the barrels ended up defining the expression of the most important wines on the planet. There are even those who claim that there is no great wine without oak aging. I also believe it does not matter if it is red, white, sweet, dry or sparkling, oak always brings complexity and elegance to the final result.

There’s a lot more to oak than first meets the eye, and if you take a look at the different options, you’ll find a ton of flavor changes. So, simply put, this is just another important variable to play around by enologists; just as much as the grape variety, the weather around the vineyards, soil structure and minerality, juice mix, etc... Think of it as you think of a chef using the salt.

The time you age the wine inside the barrel is another factor to consider and it varies drastically from one situation to the next. Wineries typically will age their wines between 6 months and 2 years. The more times an oak wine barrel has been used, the slower its effect will be on a wine. Which means, the wine will need to remain in the barrel longer as the number of uses increases. This is why wineries often rotate a percentage or their barrel stock out each year to help even-up the amount barrel aging their wines will need from one year to the next. As you probably heard before, there are two primary species preferred for winemaking: Quercus alba or American white oak and Quercus petrea or European/French white oak. Other species are still used such as acacia, chesnut, Iberian and English oak. However, American and French oaks are indisputably preponderant in the industry. And if you guessed barrels are not cheap, you are very right. The art of creating the barrels is actually a very complex and precise process within the wine production as it defines the taste of the final product. It's called cooperage and from its origins it has been passed down from generation to generation. Sadly, this now rare skill, juxtaposed with high demand, has skyrocketed barrel prices.

The major distinguishable physical difference between the wine oak species is its density of the wood. European oak tends to be more dense which has been suggested to impart less oak lactones and oxygen than American oak. Generally speaking, American oak is ideal for bolder, more structured wines (Cabernet Sauvignon, Petite Sirah) that can handle robust flavors and oxygen ingress, whereas European oak is ideal for lighter wines (such as Pinot Noir or Chardonnay) that require more 'elusiveness'.

As always, a recommendation... If you don’t particularly like wines with a lot of oak, avoid California wines, especially those that are mass-produced since they tend to over-oak more than other regions of the world. Go for Spanish or French wines, they generally express oak notes that are more subtle and well-balanced.

See you all next Wednesday!