You hate oak, I hate you

One of my first solid wine related memories, is my mother at restaurants. My dad doesn’t drink, so there wasn’t really wine at home unless there was company coming over. But every now and then, typically on a girls lunch or on vacation, my mother would step into the unknown and order a glass of wine.

“A white, nothing oaked, and not Chardonnay”

This is when I realized that wine + oak could be a thing, and that there were different kinds of wines with different tastes. Incase you’re wondering, my mother would often end up with a Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand.

I love my mother very much, but she will be the first to admit that she doesn’t know anything about wine.

Which gets me to today’s topic… You don’t hate oak, so drop it.

So, oak is like if you're trying to drunk cook and you hurt yourself. The injuries vary, and the causes vary, but you always get the same result. Something is different, either your pride or you body, in the morning.

Professor Oak, in different versions of himself. GET IT? 

What is the friggin point of oak anyway? We only use oak because everyone thinks the air is too clean and there are too many trees in too many forests so we are just aimlessly chopping them down.  That’s a joke people, that’s a joke.

Basically oak does a couple of things…

Firstly, it does something called “micro-oxidization” or, microox if you’re trendy and cool. What that means it is rounds the wine. You know when you’re swimming and you can’t breathe and it gets to a point when you’re stressed the eff out? But then you bust out and are breathing and everything is relaxed and chill again? Wine likes to breathe too, bro. In oak, teeny tiny beads of oxygen, micro amounts if you will, (lawl. I’m super funny) get into the wine, and the wine is drowning so it gobbles the air up. When it does that it helps to soften the wine and relaxes it, so the tannins and acids become less firm and more palatable.

This DOESN’T mean wine gets sloshed around like the subject of a hose with your slip ‘n’ slide in the summer. Too much oxygen and your wine gets this dried fruit flavour and aroma, and spoils faster. It would be like taking a bite of an apple and then just putting it back in the ‘for sale’ bin. Gross. Wine barrels are always super full, and are topped up constantly due to the absorption of wine into the wood, and evaporation.

The second main thing does is add mouth feel, and aroma to the wine. Mouth feel = literally how it feels in your pie hole.  Is it sticky? Oily? Gritty? Bubbly? Oak helps to add something called ‘hydrolysable tannins’ which basically means the wine is thieving aspects from the wood instead of stuff that was already there. They just have a slightly different feel in your mouth than stuff that comes in off the grape. Basically the wine gets a tannin boob job, enhancing what it already has, a slightly different feeling, but the same general concept. In terms of aroma, different oak has different flavours. Typically you’re looking at things like coconut, and vanilla, or smoke, and tobacco.

Every wine can be oaked, but not every wine should be oaked. Yes, like we know you could get back with your ex, but that doesn’t mean you should get back with your ex. Balancing oak can sometimes be tricky, but when does balance properly it is rockin’.  You can also put your wine in huge vats of oak, or in tiny barrels. (*I am not discussing fake oak here. Here I am talking OG oak barrels). Use your brain, smaller container = more oak contact = more oak flavour, and vise versa.

Wtf do I even mean, different kinds of oak?

For all intensive purposes, there are three kinds of species of oak trees that are used.  Quercus Alba = American, Quercus Sessilis = French, Quercus Robar = Other Europe (ex: Slovenian, Hungarian)

They are all the same tree, but with different aspects. The same way that European grapes are vitis vinifera, but different kids of grapes.

American oak = perceived sweeter, more prominent impact on the wine (generally). Smells like coconut, dried almond, and vanilla; a little smoother on your palate. This is what people generally associate with oak that they hate, the over use of American oak. Often found in California (Chard’s and others) and in Rijoa (Spain, 9/10 times using the Tempranillo grape)

French oak = more of a mouth feel (more hydrolysable tannin, more common for long term aging of wine), typically less overt on the nose in the same way as American oak. What you do get is grittier; smoke, cedar, tobacco. Take a guess where you find French oak guys… you’re right, France. Friggin genius.

Other Europe oak = Literally the middle ground, more mouth feel than American, sweeter aromatics than French. Here you find more cedar, and almost a raw popcorn kernel thing going on. Can be found in extremely varying of sizes and ages through Italy, and Eastern Europe.

Most wineries use oak multiple times, anywhere between 3-8 depending on the winemaking style and ca$h flow. The more you use the oak, the less oak flavour you get. It goes in half lives, like fossils. So the first time you peel the oak out of plastic you get 100% oak influence, the second time 50%, the third time 25%, you get the idea. Eventually, the oak flavour disappears, and you just get the benefit of the microox. This means that wine where you don’t taste the oak, still could have spent a couple years relaxing in a barrel.

So, no, you don’t hate oak. You may hate a certain kind of oak, or oak paired with a certain grape, or you may even hate the use of new oak. But, I highly, highly, doubt that you hate oak all together. Quit being so narrow minded, n00b.

All my love,

M