The following is from a recent email sent to Windsor Vineyards email subscribers by our Director of Wine Education Steve Ross. By popular request, we’ve reprinted it here.
Color, clarity, aromas, flavors, tannins, acidity, balance and mouth feel; when we discuss the traits of a particular wine, we often overlook the vital contributions of the oak barrels in which the wine was aged. Truth be told, the oak barrel, working in concert with the wine, contributes greatly to the final product in your wine glass.
Overview of the Oak Barrel
Windsor Vineyards Barrel Room
Oak barrels used at Windsor Vineyards come from forests in the United States and France. The American oak tends to have larger grain and pores, thus imparting more intense characteristics on the wine than its French counterpart; the French oak, having smaller pores and grain, has a more subtle impact on the wine.
Ergo, when our winemaker, Marco DiGiulio, makes the determination of which country’s oak to use on which wines, the decision is fairly straightforward: French oak for the more delicate Bordeaux and Burgundy varietals (Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Malbec, Petite Verdot and Chardonnay) and American oak for the more rustic and rugged varietals from the Rhone Valley and California (Petite Sirah, Syrah, Grenache, Mourvedre, Carignane and Zinfandel.) The American oak has such a heavy-handed affect on the wine, it is used sparingly, typically in the 15-20% range, with the balance being French oak.
Selecting a Cooper
The companies that produce wine barrels are called coopers, and the cooperage selection process can make or break a winery. Ideally, the winemaker wants consistency in the aroma, flavor, tannin and toasting qualities of the wood staves that ultimately comprise the wine barrels.
Hey, it’s just wood, right? You go out, chop down some oak trees, whittle away at the lumber to produce flat slats and voilà, you have wine barrel staves. Wrong Pinocchio! Like any other industry, all coopers are not created equal; everyone probably suspects Marco researches the heck out of prospective vineyards for our wines, and they would be right; well, he does the same thing with our coopers and the forests where the oak trees are grown.
Windsor Winemakers Marco DiGiulio & Zach Long
Marco has made numerous trips around our country and to France, inspecting the forests and interviewing prospective coopers; his goal is to select forests with rigid maintenance programs and coopers that are serious about their business and treat the staves with the utmost of care and dedication.
The characteristics of each cooper’s barrels are dependent on the terroir of a given forest, the cooper’s care and maintenance of the staves and finally the cooper’s toasting (charring of the inside of the completed barrel) practices. Marco has selected over a dozen French coopers and a few American coopers for use in our barrel program; this impressive array provides for maximum flexibility in matching every vintage with the proper set of barrels.
The Chemistry of Winemaking
Due to annual climate fluctuations, no two vintage years are the same, even from a single vineyard; changes in grape tannins, body and flavor necessitate the wine being aged in a different mix of cooper’s barrels from year to year. Another important decision is the percentage of new versus used oak; the used having a more subtle impact on the wine.
The percentage of new versus used and which coopers to use for aging is made during the primary fermentation portion of winemaking; Marco samples the fermenting wines daily and once he sees where that particular vintage is heading, he specifies the barrel protocol.
During the aging process, organic chemistry comes into play with the polymeric interaction between the toasted oak and the wine. The intrinsic aroma, flavor, and tannin components of the toasted, oak barrel marry with the natural aroma, flavor and tannin components of the wine to produce the complex, layered and integrated wine that ends up on your table.
Final Thoughts
The next time you read the back label of a wine bottle or the winemaker’s notes and come across descriptors like: coffee, caramel, vanilla, roasted nuts, butterscotch, clove, cinnamon, nutmeg, chocolate or smoked meat, you should understand those attributes didn’t come from the grape or the terroir, they came from the oak barrel.
Cheers!
Steve Ross
Director of Wine Education
Filed under: Wine, Wine News, Winemaking | Tagged: american oak, cooperage, french oak, wine barrels, Winemaking
