Wednesday, April 30 2008

Acorns, Oaks and Nuts

Is that an adze in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?

I originally wanted to title this entry, 'Eric Asimov is a Nut', but that's not fair to him. After all, being a nut never hurt me in my job, so it probably isn't inhibiting him either. But I couldn't help but grunt and howl while I read The Pour today, 'Does Your Wine Need Viagra?'. It's one of those blogs that bears watching--he's a thoughtful and experienced bibber with some interesting insights. Usually.

Today his thesis is that the use of oak products in place of proper oak barrels was contributing to inferior wines in America, and that the country had ceded the quality wine market to other countries, implicitly acknowledging that they weren't worthy because they used something other than barrels to age wine. He stated that the oak products encouraged

" . . . softness, sweetness, vanilla flavor, enhanced fruitiness, stabilized color (which in this context means really dark) – just the qualities that I don't look for in a wine."

Hmm. Nope, that's not a flaw of oak products vs. barrels. It's a flaw of oak. Barrels can contribute to the structure and character of a wine without adding overt vanilla/toast/smoke to a wine, if they're old enough or made out of non-oak woods (see below). That process is called 'elevage', and it's the true magic of barrel storage. He goes on to say

" . . . the inexpensive end of the industry is dominated by big producers who do practice this industrial style of winemaking. It's different in Europe where small winemakers still exist who take pride in what they do . . ."

Oy! Yowch, ow ow ow, the presumptive conflation, it burns! Throw in a dose of 'good old day-ism' and 'it's better because it's from far away', and I'm banjaxed. Sure, there are lots of terrible wines in America. There's also a vast ocean of terrible wine in Europe made in dirty old barrels that taste of brettanomyces and bad grapes. Even now the worst of Champagne is set to get even lower with the inclusion of marginal lands to satisfy demand for any kind of fizzy with the C-label, and so on. Pointing out particular wines does nothing to advance the understanding of the problem, which in my mind is that people think oak tastes good at all.

You may have noticed that this means I actually agree with his dislike of excessive oak. But that doesn't make him less wrong.

Before the Romans met their match in the Gauls, wine was either made inside animal skins (essentially you take the skin off a dead ungulate, scrape it a bit, turn it inside out, sew it into a bag, and fill it with wine--the mind reels) or in clay vessels--giant underground jars around the black sea, amphorae around the Mediterranean. Oak barrels have a heck of an advantage over either of these vessels--the bible talks about not putting old wine in new skins for a reason. The skins were rotting like zombie flesh while people were still drinking out of them, and clay is heavy and fragile. Barrels are light, incredibly strong, and easy to handle (every wrestle an ox-hide filled with 200 gallons of wine?).

But while oak is a great construction material, it has a problem: it confers a flavour to wine. That's why a few barrels are made out of cherry or chestnut woods--tight grain and strong wood, but no oaky flavour. Over time, however, and especially since the last decades of the 20th century people began to associate the flavours of oak with quality. No small wonder, since elevage really does help wine, and only the most expensive wines could go in barrels. Some clever fellow figured that if oak was what people wanted, then oak was what they'd get.

Typical of the wretched excesses of their nation, the Australians grasped this with both hands, shoveling vast quantities of oak powder into their bargain Chardonnay and Shiraz--and the public drank it up. No elevage, mind you, but with enough vanilla and smoke, who could tell? And the buying public rewarded them with money, accolades, and a huge export industry.

So who's at fault? Wine critics, for not continually deriding and mocking overly oaked wines, be they from barrels or oak cubes, shavings, chips or powder. Oak is a winemaking tool and like any tool it can be used by a craftsman to good effect, or by a butcher to ruinous excess. It's a wise critic who does not blame the tools for the work produced. In the 90's when I used to collect California wines, and before I knew better, I used to pay attention to the Wine Dictator and The Beast of the Apocalypse. I bought a whole whack of Pahlmeyer wines. The wine was aged for years in 100% new oak barrels, and smelled like a burning forest of vanilla pods--on toast. Figuring on holding them for decades before I drank them, I snuck a bottle in the late 90's.

And poured it down the sink, because it was swill. All that was left of the wine was an aftertaste of jam and bookcases. Was it the fault of oak products? No, it was the fault of oak, period, and the wretched excess and ego of the winemaker and his master. With less oak and better grape selection, it could have lasted and been a great wine. But it might have been that good with no barrels and just a touch of powdered oak with a judicious winemaking hand (and less ego).

Or with no oak at all. Like Eric I search for wines that express the character of the grape and the terroir. I'm depressed about the quality of a lot of wine I taste these days that substitutes cover-up for good fruit and technique, but unlike the As, I'm not about to blame the tool--unless that's what you call the guy who made the lousy wine in the first place.

Posted by Tim AT 11:02PM

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