Importance of Oak in Wine
It may come as no surprise to some but my favourite wines are made from chardonnay. It is a very divisive grape as many people love to hate it. And the number one reason why people tell me they dislike it is because “it is too oaky”. Yet they will drink other clearly oaky red wines. So I want to explain why oak is good, what it does to the wine and when too much is too bad.
First of all, the buttery flavour that some dislike in chardonnay has little to nothing to do with oak. That is a a second fermentation called malolactic fermentation in which bacteria convert the harsh malic acids in the wine into softer, buttery lactic acid.
With few exceptions, every wine will go through this process. Especially in cooler climates where the acids are very high.
And for grapes like chardonnay that are naturally high in acid and grown in cooler climates, this process is important.
So it’s not the oak that people dislike, it is the buttery flavours that occur during winemaking and can be accentuated by different winemaking techniques.
Now that that clarification is out of the way, consider oak a spice, like any other in your kitchen pantry. We can all roast potatoes, but everyone will do it differently and more importantly will add variable combinations of spices. Lots of salt for some, herbs for others. Maybe even a squeeze of lemon.
Similarly, different oak can provide different flavours and aromas to the wine. There are two main places where oak comes from, France and America, and each have different profiles. And once you add in which forest the tree was grown and how the barrel was toasted on the inside you can begin to understand the subtle differences that oak can make to the finished wine.
What really matters to the oak is the style of wine going into it and this is directly affected by where the grapes are grown. If grapes, in this case chardonnay, are grown someplace warm, the resulting wine will be higher in alcohol and lower in acid. Put this wine into new oak and it could seem almost sweet, like butterscotch and caramel. Especially in American oak where it might also take on flavours of vanilla
If the grapes are grown someplace cooler, traditionally places like chablis and burgundy, or locally in PEC, the grapes will tend to have higher acid and lower alcohol. Put this wine in brand new oak barrels and the results can be transformative. Leave the wine in the bottle for a few years giving the oak and wine time to get to know each other, and you will most certainly be delighted.
Of course too much of anything has its risks and oak is no different. Lower quality grapes, for example, masked by too much oak results in very bad wine. And sadly there is too much of this at the entry level, and as a result chardonnay gets a bad name. When in fact it is poor winemaking trying to make wines that are made to please many, and not the discerning few.