That’s very interesting. Thanks, Otto.
Black pepper in Syrah is definitely more connected to fruit than wood in my opinion.
The baking spices in Pinot Noir can be derived from stems and also from barrel. Cinnamon and clove are pretty common notes in my wines while they are still in fermenter.
As food for thought regarding white spices in Chardonnay…most producers may have a preference for certain types of barrels for red or white ferments, but those preferences are not uniform at all. And I have never had a cooper tell me that a barrel will produce white spices in Chardonnay. I may not be thinking of the same thing you are but I would guess that white spices in a Chardonnay would be a combination of fruit, yeast esters, barrel impact, and lees contact.
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And yes, this is very much the case. Typically the staves from which especially the larger barrels are made of are thick enough so that the cask can be reconditioned several times.
It’s quite common especially in Italy where bottis are commonplace. I’ve heard it’s difficult (and thus quite costly) work, but seeing how pricey huge bottis can be and how much hassle it is to move them around, no wonder producers opt to recondition them instead of just buying new ones.
There are so many variables.
Degree of toast.
Length of seasoning.
The size of the barrel
The age of the barrel
The barrel maker
The forest from where the oak comes from.
Quality of oak ie tightness of grain.
I like Ottos desciption of Bourbon v Cognac.
Really good air dried American oak with moderate toast can look quite chocolatey and avoid the vanillin notes of more typical American oak and look quite French. Really good Slovenian Oak can look quite French.
The dill notes that people talk about I see in barrels (generally American) that haven’t been seasoned for long enough in my experience.
The toast levels are key to determining which notes are present and the source of wood and skill of the cooper likely affect the nuance of the balance of those flavors. Coconut is present in very high levels in untoasted oak from both France and USA.
Also, America is a big place and oak is sourced from several different parts of it. We have had the best luck with Virgina Oak when we have used AO on our Pinots. French oak imparts more tannin per the amount of aromatics I think too.
Given all the different tastes mentioned here (and thank you, everyone, for the depth of this discussion), when people say they’re sensitive to the taste of oak, or “this is an oak bomb,” what’s the flavor they’re reacting to? Vanilla?
I’ve had the opportunity to taste the same juice from different barrels, neutral, new, American, French. Way too many factors to whittle it down to a few words, but if I had to, American oak tends to impart some of the same qualities you’d find in a good bourbon, smoke, spice, some sharpness. French to me acts more like sandpaper and takes the edge off bringing more fruit to the front and putting the oak notes in the background. Complete generalizations, use as you wish.
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For my guess it’s the buttery/vanilla notes.
But having tried to taste differences in various oaks used on the exact same wine, I can say that at least for me, it can be pretty hard to make blanket statements. There is just so much more than “American” vs “French”. Kent mentioned a number of things that matter. And terroir matters with oak, just like it does with grapes. I’ve had a lot of wine aged in Hungarian oak. Yesterday I was tasting a wine and I asked if there was any Hungarian oak used. It just seemed like so many wines that had used that oak. Nope. All American oak. But from what forest? I don’t know.
And the oak from the Zemplén hills, Quercus Petraea, is the same as the oak in the forests of Alliers, France. So does “Hungarian” v “French” even mean anything? In the US, a lot of the wood is not Quercus Petraea, but is usually, although not always, Quercus Alba. But if it is not Q. Alba, does it still count as “American” oak?
Zemplen hills produce very tight grained trees whereas oak from southern/southwestern oak has more in common with Slavonian oak. But it is all pretty much the same species.
American oak usually includes five or six species other than q alba, but most people would not lump q garryana aka oregon oak into that category.
One of the gags Paul Draper plays on unsuspecting newcomers, is his blind barrel tastings between AO and FO aged wines. Most people get it wrong. But I do think you have to use AO to lesser degree than FO - maybe half as much to equate the “same” extraction. 100% new oak Napa cab’s on AO would probably be pretty oaky wine. BTW, Just had Ridge’s Boatman Zinfandel tonight and after a little time in glass, really showed quite beautiful and had a very elegant AO profile: almost imperceptibly there.
Let me quote you my barrel producer:
The compounds to look for to get nutty and butterscotch flavors are Furfural and 5-Methylfurfural and the toast with the best result would be a MT/MT+ AA. AA means water-spraying the staves before the end of the toast so the steam open the wood fibers to extract more of those compounds while the MT/MT+ toast provokes the caramelization needed. However the best oak would not be American but Slavonian to get the highest level of those 2 compounds.
Here’s the data to support that:
Lots of information on the subject, and some notes on how Paul Draper got started with American Oak: RIDGE and American Oak - Ridge Vineyards
Yes, well, my point wasn’t that I’d find it weird that Slavonian oak would yield more caramel / butterscotch notes, but that you celebrate Hungarian oak and single out Slavonian oak for their caramel / butterscotch tones, even though they are virtually the same thing!
And your graphs only indicated what I already told: caramel / butterscotch requires some degree of toast, so a lighter toast should yield less less to no caramel / butterscotch notes, no matter where the wood comes from or which species of oak it is.
Historically Slavonian oak hasn’t been particularly toasted - as opposed to the more contemporary approach in making barrels of medium-to-heavy toast French or American oak barrels - since the wood was normally made into large botti and other vessels of larger size that required less bending of the wood, hence, less toasting to make them pliable (although, to my understanding, nowadays the heavier toast is applied only afterwards, not during the barrel-making process).
So Slavonian / Hungarian oak might be the best kind of wood to yield those specific notes, but historically it has never been used for those qualities, since - I think - they have never been desired qualities in the regions where this type of wood has been the primary material for making oak vessels.
I knew I shouldn’t even have brought it up. Sigh.
While you brought up an interesting data point, I just needed to point out
a) The inconsistency of you treating Hungarian and Slavonian oak as completely distinct types of wood, while the difference between them is minuscule, negligible or even nonexistent.
b) Due to the vagueness of your claim Slavonian oak is known to impart a lot of butterscotch/caramel notes, so if you’re in need of that, that might be the way to go. it sounded like if one wants butterscotch / caramel tones, one should go for wines aged in Slavonian oak, which is simply incorrect. While it is certainly true - as your graphs point out - that with correct degree of toast, Slavonian oak is probably the best source for these notes, an overwhelming majority of wines aged in Slavonian oak are aged in large, old and lightly-toasted botti casks. Nothing remotely caramel or butterscotch there.
However, your claim is certainly true if it was directed at winemakers who were pondering on which oak their barrels should be made from. I just thought the first interpretation was the more plausible one, since (I’d estimate) we have 100 wine enthusiasts to one winemaker in this forum.
It’s always dangerous to make generalizations about anything in the world of wine, and oak and barrels are no exception.
A Hungarian oak specialist I know likes to point out that the trees in northern Hungary grow on tufa, so growth is very slow. It snows a lot. In SW Hungary. you have different soils and warmer weather.
What happens to the logs after cutting is also important. Proper seasoning is crucial and can override even the difference of species.
I have tasted barrels with Paul Draper many times. The Monte Bello vineyard gives intense wines that sometimes I think one could use pine barrels there. However I did feel Taransaud showed well with the Monte Bello on more than one occasion.
Personally I would love to see them use more Hungarian barrels on Zinfandel.
During a tasting/tour at Flora Springs winery a few years ago (not their hideous tasting room), they had their Trilogy blend in three different barrels in one of their barrel storage cave/tunnels. Same vintage, same length of time in the barrels. The only difference was the type of oak, same degree of toaste, and all three barrels were new when the wine was added to them. One was American, one Hungarian, one French. The group of five with me, and I, all tasted from each barrel. The American oak wine seemed to be the most tannic of the bunch, and fruit smell/flavor was a bit subdued, or in other words - wasn’t a punch in the face kind of sensory impact. The wine from the French oak barrel was the most impactful. Tannins were the smoothest, fruit smell and flavor the most forward, and also the most buttery. The wine from the Hungarian barrel was about halfway between the other two. Frankly, all of us preferred the smell and flavor of the wine from the Hungarian oak barrel, but preferred the softer tannins from the French oak barrel. It was a lot of fun and a great experience. If anyone ever has an opportunity to do the same, you ought to.
Otto, you’ve been a mountain of information on this thread. Thanks for all of the great insights.
Regarding butterscotch/caramel, these are both flavors that are as related to oxygen/porosity/regular topping as it is toast levels. Not toasting the barrel wouldn’t mean none, especially in white wines.
But low toast oak barrels typically have a distinct astringent tannin and often negative flavors. My experience is with French oak, not Slavonian, but I would have a bit of wonder at whether that would be much different.
I use mostly medium toasts done with cooler heat for a longer period of time. I also only use 3 season staves, except for Chassin which is 2 seasons. When we experimented with low toasts the barrels showed very green.
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What does 3 season staves here mean? Staves aged for 3 seasons? How much is that?
Lower degree of toast definitely can increase the wood tannin extraction, since toasting partly burns/seals the pores from which tannins could be extracted and partly just transforms them into other, often aromatic compounds. However, I’ve had wines that have been aged in non-toasted (i.e. steamed) barrels and they’ve been quite neutral, not showing any greenness, caramel or bitter tones. I guess it depends on so many things how the barrel behaves, i.e. stave seasoning, how the staves are toasted, how the barrel is pre-treated and so on.
Often greenness from oak comes from staves that haven’t been aged for long enough. Higher toasting can certainly reduce that (this is pretty obvious in Bourbon where the wood is not aged but instead kiln-dried, then charred coal-black to ensure no green oak tones would be extracted into the spirit).
The amount of green notes and tannic bitterness is also affected by the species of the wood. The French oak can be either Quercus Robur, which is higher in ellagitannins and lower in aromatic compounds like oak lactones and different triterpenouds, or Quercus Petraea, which is lower in ellagitannins and higher in those sweeter oak notes, resulting in less bitter and more aromatic wines. A French oak barrel made with Quercus Robur staves not aged long enough can be markedly different from a French oak barrel made with Quercus Petraea staves aged for 4 years, no matter the degree of toast!
Yep. It’s why I usually avoid these conversations. There are different climates, or at least weather patterns, in each country, depending on whether we’re talking about mountains, valleys, etc. Yesterday I woke up to a cool and sunny morning, drove through a blizzard, left the state in a misty rainstorm, and arrived home on a sunny, warm, dry afternoon. All of that was in two states in the US, so it’s difficult to talk about “American” oak unless one specifies the locale. And then, as you say, there’s the cutting and seasoning.
There are always differences. We did an experiment once with four different forests, two of which were maybe an hour’s walk from each other. Very different results.
With American oak, there is not just q alba, but burr oak, which is often used for heading, so you might have two species in the same barrel. There is also chinkapin oak. Shafer used to make chardonnay in that oak. Very different from q alba. Then we are talking about a range that goes from Minnesota to Virginia via Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky, Pennsylvania etc.
With barrel making there is always the question of consistency of supply, which is hard to find on any scale in the former Yugoslavia etc, and of logistics. We used to joke about making a Hapsburg barrel , but the trucking costs would kill any idea of profits.
The advantage of making oak barrels in France is that there is a lot of wood and the forests are managed for the long run.
One more thing to remember: there are many uses of oak.People who buy furniture or erect buildings don’t care where the oak came from.
So the savings on these non French barrels often come from labor costs.