Tuesday, January 22 2008

Seeing the Forest for the Trees

Getting nicely toasted: barrels under construction

Counting the Cost, Part II: A large barrel

Is the answer then to use a 227 litre (60 US gallon) barrel? Maybe. Certainly the ratio of surface area to volume is a lot more conducive to long term storage of wine. A 227 litre barrel has about 80 square centimetres of oak exposure per litre of wine. At that rate you will only probably need two batches of wine to season it in the first year; some top wineries use new oak barrels every year for their premium wines. The drawbacks include the fact that you're going to have to make 227 litres of one wine variety on hand every time you want to fill the barrel. Your variety will be limited. Also this barrel, as much as any other, will need to be kept full at all times. When you want to bottle your wine you must have another 227 litres of one kind of wine ready to go.

So Who's Dumb Enough to Use Oak Barrels?

It's beginning to look like no one in their right mind would ever want to use a barrel. Rest easy. The barrel is without doubt the finest way to impart a quality oak flavour to your wine–you just have to be sure you're ready to keep it fed and happy. This may involve purchasing a barrel with a friend or a group of friends. That way you'll not only split the costs, you also won't have 225 litres of one kind of wine. If you aren't sure whether barrels are right for you, talk it over with your local wine-making shop and get a couple of books that discuss barrels. Desmond Lundy's Handmade Table Wines has a good section on barrels, Daniel Pambianchi's Techniques in Home Winemaking has a great section covering both barrels and oak use, and Thomas Bachelders' You Made This? (sadly not in print at this time) has an excellent discussion of barrel use. For a dissenting opinion on whether oak barrels are suitable for consumer winemaking, check out Okanagan Barrel Works. Cal has been selling, repairing and re-furbishing barrels for years, and has some great information on his site.

Oak chips. Photo: StaVin

The Chips are Down: Alternative Oak Products

Oak chips are cheap, require no maintenance, no break-in period, never go sour or get infected, and they allow you to experiment with different styles and flavours of oak without investing in new barrels. Used properly, they give you that toasty vanilla finished quality that only oak can deliver. On the other hand they aren't the sublime improver of wine that an oak barrel can be. Chips come in different forms; powder, shavings, chips, beans and staves. They are also available untoasted, or with a dark, light, or medium toast. Also you can choose between American, French and Slavic wood. How will you decide which one you need?

Taking a powder

Looking like little more than sawdust, oak powder is a convenient and easy way to get oak flavour and aroma into your wine. The powder is added to the wine in a measured amount, usually about 50 grams per 23 litres of wine, before or during primary fermentation. The frothing and rolling action of the fermenting wine will extract almost all of the oak within one week. The powder can also be used after fermentation with good success.

The nicest thing about the powder is that it's so convenient; throw it in before adding your yeast and then ignore it. When you rack to your secondary fermenter almost all the powder gets left behind with the yeast sediment in the bottom of the carboy, leaving behind oak flavour with no fuss.

Bigger Pieces

Made by pushing selected pieces of oak through a planer, saw or a chipper these products are in many respects similar to oak powder: no fuss or maintenance–oak flavour without the investment and worry of a barrel. The difference lies in when you use them. While powders and shavings work best if added before or during fermentation, chips, beans and staves work best if added after primary fermentation is ended. This means you can delay your decision to add oak until the wine is finished fermenting.

Chips are available untoasted, medium, and dark toast. The varieties are French and American wood. Which one you choose will depend on the type of wine you are oaking and the style which you are trying to emulate. If you were trying to make a big oaky California Zinfandel you would want medium toast American oak. If you make a delicate Pinot Noir you'll want medium toast French, and so on. If you want more advice on choosing the type of oak best suited to your wine, ask the people who sold you your juice in the first place. They should have an idea what will best compliment their products.

Beans and staves are simply larger sizes of chipped wood. Because of their higher volume-to-surface-area ratio they release oak character more slowly into the wine.

Extract; Wood-juice for Wine

Without a doubt oak extract is the most convenient way to get oak flavour and aroma in your wine. All you do is add a measured amount of the liquid to your finished wine and stir. Usually you'll start by adding half the amount you think you'll need and gradually add more to taste. The nice thing about using extract is that there's no more waiting; once it tastes oaky enough you can go ahead and drink it.

That's great! Everyone should use extract!

The only trouble with extract is that the quality of flavour isn't as high as chips or shavings, and certainly isn't as good as using a barrel. In fact, some of the cheaper extracts on the market are made with nasty ethanol and floor sweepings, and taste more of burnt bread crumbs than of fresh toasty oak. The very best oak extracts are made from a neutral white wine base and high quality oak powder. However, even the best ones lack some of the delicacy of the fresh oak products. The upshot is this; if you want to quickly add oak flavour to a wine without fuss, and with no need to age it for smoothness, oak extract can make an acceptable substitute for chips or powder.

The Bottom Line on Oak

Three things will influence your choice of oaking methods: time, money, and the amount of wine you intend to produce. For the small scale wine-maker chips and powder will provide good oak flavours and aromas in any wine they're added to. For the serious enthusiast nothing can beat the mystical qualities of a barrel. For a wine that needs 'doctoring up' oak extract can help make it palatable.

Of course, the most important thing that will influence your oaking regimen is personal taste. If you're looking for termite terroir, then pile on the oak products and barrels. If your bark is worse than your bite (I liked the timbre of that pun) then you'll want to go subtle, or not at all. Sometimes the fruit is the thing, not the wood.

And that's the great thing about making your own wine: you get to decide what it tastes like.

Posted by Tim AT 10:13PM

2 Comments

Post A Comment

Email