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Vessels 101: Oak
If you’ve ever done a tasting at a winery, chances are someone was telling you about how each bottle was made, and that some spent time in oak, some 100% in stainless steel others maybe in some concrete egg thing. Are these just talking points to fill time or make the person behind the bar sound smart? Nope. It all matters. And below I’m going to explain why with a few of the most common vessels used to ferment and age wine.
Wine can really be fermented and aged in almost anything. But over the years, a few vessels have proved themselves to be most effective because of convenience or what they add to the finished wine. And although these vessels will be discussed separately, in practice winemakers typically blend wine from a few of these vessels to bring certain aspects of each to the finished wine.
The point of this page is to give you an understanding of how each vessel affects wine, so that when presented with this information on a bottle, you will be able to not only understand why they were used, but be able to predict what flavors may be expected in that wine.
So first, let’s take a look at the most common vessels, and how they affect each wine.
Oak
Why is oak used?
After years of trial and error, oak, above almost all other woods, has emerged as the best wood to enhance wine. If a wine has been made by using oak during fermentation or the ageing process, it will have an affect on a few different aspects:
Adds Flavor
- Vanilla
- Coconut
- Cloves
- Cinnamon
- Dill
- Smoke
- Toast
- Caramel
Changes Texture
Oak tends to soften a wines tannin, making it more approachable, especially in its youth. It also gives the wine a rounder mouthfeel from small amounts of oxygen seeping through the wood.
Color Stabilization
The use of oak barrels can counteract the affect acidity has on the color of wines. High acidity will start to dull the color of a wine over time, but the process of oak aging will actually stabilize the color, leaving the finished product with a richer hue.
How does oak affect flavor?
Micro-oxygenation
This is a fancy way of saying that since the barrel is made of wood, it will over time expand and contract, letting in small amounts of oxygen to come into contact with the wine. This affects the wine the same way that oxygen affects any other fruit (think bananas being left on the counter for days). If used correctly, it can add depth and complexity to the wine just like catching a ripening banana at the perfect time makes it much sweeter than when you bought it. The key here though, is the very small amount of oxygen being introduced, so that the wine doesn’t end up turning into vinegar, but instead starts to develop earthier tones and a rounder mouthfeel.
Direct contact
This is the more obvious expression of oak flavors that come from the wine pulling actual flavor from the wood itself. Typically, these flavors are things like vanilla, coconut, spices, or smoke, and they can vary in intensity due to a number of factors like age, size, and toast level.
How does oak affect texture?
It sounds odd to talk about the texture of a liquid, but it makes sense, trust me. As the wine spends time in the barrel, it will leech off not only flavor, but also tannin from the wood itself. This tannin feels slightly different (softer) than the natural tannins from the grapes, which helps with the complexity of the wine.
The time in barrel will also start to “round out” wines that might have been too austere to start. That is to say maybe their tannins are too “grippy” or not quite integrated with the wine. This is achieved by a combination of the direct contact and micro-oxygenation process, and will usually leave wines feeling more elegant, and is why most of the top producers will invest the time and money it takes to oak-age their wines.
Types of Barrels
Once a winemaker chooses to use oak barrels, he or she is faced with a number of decisions about what type of barrel to use. There are a few factors that will impact the wine differently depending on what barrel is used, they are:
- Country of origin
- Age
- Size
- Toast level
Country of Origin
There are a few countries that produce the right type of oak to make these barrels. But for purposes of the test at the end (just kidding), there are three major ones to know:
Russia and Hungary also make barrels for wine, but it is pretty rare to see either, and it’s probably best to not add more confusion than Slovenian.
American Oak
The trees used for these barrels are typically grown in the mid-west and out in Oregon. The grains tend to be a little tighter than French oak, and the aromatics are much more powerful, giving the wines highly pronounced aromas of coconut and dill.
Don’t be fooled by the price of the barrels and think that French barrels are superior to American. The price has a lot more to do with the process of making the barrels than the quality. In general, oak trees in France take much longer to grow, and have other properties that make them a little more difficult to work with, which all adds to the final cost.
French Oak
Although France is lucky enough to have these trees grow in a bunch of different places throughout the country, it unfortunately does not make them any less expensive. As noted above, they are more difficult to work with and have even yield less wood per tree than American.
That being said, they do offer an excellent subtle quality to the wines, which makes the finished product seem more elegant than those aged in brand new American oak. Since the wines from France tend not be as powerful as those from California or Spain, it makes French barrels a perfect option to incorporate the benefits of oak without overpowering the wine.
Slovenian Oak
These barrels are commonly used in Northern Italy, especially in Piedmont where they make the very tannic wines of Barolo. The barrels are typically cheaper than French options, and are often built to a much bigger size than the common Barriques. This is good for the wines of Northern Italy because it does not curb the high tannins that have become iconic in that region.
They also tend to not impart as much flavor as American or even French oak which means producers can use the barrels to manipulate texture of the wines without adding unwanted flavors.
Age
The age of a barrel is going to have a huge impact on how it affects the wine. You will often hear people say a wine has been aged in new, used, or neutral oak barrels, so what does that mean?
Short answer is that when a barrel is brand new, the first wine to go inside that barrel will pull out the most flavors from the wood itself as you might expect. With each use (sometimes expressed in years) the impact that barrel has on the wine with regards to flavor from wood contact, diminishes.
This is expressed in the graph below, although the decline isn’t really a perfect linear decline, but you get the idea. More importantly, is that after about 4 to 5 uses of a barrel, it becomes “neutral” and stops imparting flavor from the wood, but still adds elements from oxygen as discussed before.
Are new barrels better than neutral?
Nope. Each stage of a barrel can provide a different service to a wine, so which barrel is used is a function of the variety, location, and desired finished product.
New Barrels
As mentioned, these provide the strongest flavors from wood contact. This means they are best suited for powerful wines that can stand up to the flavors. Wines like top Bordeaux, big California cabs, and Spanish Rioja to name a few. But these barrels wouldn’t make sense for more delicate wines like a Riesling, most Pinot Noir, or Sauvignon Blanc.
Used Barrels
After the initial use, a barrel can still impart some of its wood flavors for the next few years, but at a lower intensity. This can be a great option for wine makers that want to have subtle notes of oak, but not to the extent that a brand new barrel might give.
Neutral Barrels
After about 4 to 5 uses, a barrel stops adding its wood flavors to the wine being stored inside it. Although this may seem like the barrel is useless at this point, that is certainly not the case.
Neutral barrels offer the winemaker the ability to slowly age wine oxidatively (because of the slight exposure to oxygen) without having to worry about the barrel adding notes that might overpower a wine.
In general, the oak notes from the barrel should never be the star of the wine, but the supporting cast. Because of this, neutral barrels are super important and commonly used to produce a more natural expression of the wine.
Also, in practice, most winemakers will blend wines from all different types of barrels for complexity, and to get a precise finished product.
Size
A cooper (a professional barrel maker) can make these barrels into almost any size, ranging from about the size of a football to an SUV.
The reason this is important for the winemaker’s decision is a matter of wine to wood contact ratio. The smaller the barrel, the more of that wine physically touches the wood, which will enhance all the characteristics mentioned above. If a wine is intended to only have subtle oak influence, a larger barrel is best.
The most common size that you’re probably used to seeing is called a Barrique and is used all over from Bordeaux to California. It holds 225 liters (300 bottles).
A great example of how the size of the barrel affects the wine is in the region of Barolo, Italy.
In Barolo, wine is made from the grape Nebbiolo, which is super tannic. Traditionally, wines were stored in giant barrels called botte which allowed the wine to age with much less contact of the wood. Because of this, the barrels did not soften the tannins as much, which meant that Barolo was almost undrinkable in its youth. Bottle aging can also help soften out some of the tannins, which is why you might be told not to open that bottle of Barolo for decades after you buy it.
That’s all well and good if you don’t mind waiting, but new producers wanted you to be able to open their bottles before your retirement party. To do this, they started using smaller barrique barrels like the ones you typically see at wineries today. This higher wine-to-wood contact ratio meant that wines were much more approachable, and could be enjoyed after a much more reasonable 5-7 years of aging.
There is still a battle raging in Barolo between traditional and modern producers, so my recommendation is to go out and see what you like best as soon as possible.
Toast level
When a barrel is being made, the cooper can “toast” the inside by carefully using fire to get to a desired level of char on the inside. The fire caramelizes the wood, which brings out different notes like toffee, smoke, and caramel. The flavors, and intensity are determined by the level of toasting applied to that barrel. More in the extra credit section.
Since you’ve definielty already read everything above, you know that the wine inside of the barrel will pick up notes from contact with the wood. Even this though, can be customized to help achieve the final wine’s flavors.
This concept is similar to roasting coffee or chocolate beans to bring out earthier or richer flavors. Again, one is not necessarily better than the other, but a tool to help a winemaker craft the best wine they can.
Light Toast
This will add a few toasty notes, but more importantly it allows for the wine to absorb higher tannins from the wood.
Medium toast
This starts to get a little more involved and adds some earthier tones to the wine like mocha and chocolate.
Heavy toast
At this point, the wood caramelizes so notes of toffee, butterscotch, and brown sugar start to come through.
Oak Alternatives
After labor, oak barrels are probably the most expensive item on a winery’s balance sheet, ranging from around $600-2000 for the barriques. Because of this, producers will often opt for a less expensive option of oak alternatives:
- Staves
- Chips
- Beans
- Shavings
- Powder
Each of these can be used to replicate the use of a barrel by being placed into the wine either before or after fermentation, and each will have a different effect based on surface area. Once again, the use of these does not immediately mean it’s not a good wine. It really depends on how they are used.
If a wine is made with oak alternatives, is it a bad wine?
So this is actually a complicated question, but the short answer is: No.
As mentioned, barrels can be extremely expensive, and not all wineries are Chateau Latour, so it’s reasonable to expect that they may need to find other solutions.
This biggest point here though is how these alternatives are being used. As mentioned in the beginning, oak can do things beyond flavor addition like color stabilization and tannin management. In a perfect world, most wineries would choose to use traditional oak barrels for this, but time and money can be scarce. So that being said, these alternatives can provide an excellent way to help craft a wine without sacrificing quality.
HOWEVER. Because so many people associate oak with high quality wine, a ton of cheap wine is made with these to push the oak flavor to the front of the palate and essentially fool the consumer into thinking the wine went through oak aging. In these cases, the alternatives are essentially being used the same way tea is steeped, and it is simply to add flavor, not complexity.
These wines can be fairly obvious though with the immensely over-oaked flavors as well as a burnt or bitter finish.
Conclusion
The use of oak in wine should always be able to blend in with the natural aspects of that wine. If it’s added simply for flavor, its essentially a cocktail. A great quote from Master Sommelier Brian McClintic goes something like “Oak in your wine should be like salt in your food. You should not be able to taste it, but understand how it enhances the experience.”
Click below to explore other vessels.