The
consensus is a solid maybe! With French oak versions, prices have gone north of
$1,000, a price point that American oak is approaching. Some winemakers have
looked to Hungarian or other eastern European sources to save a bit but not
everyone likes the effect. In a recent tasting focused on the effect of oak on
flavors, given a sample from France and the other from the U.S., about 100
participants voted unanimously for French. Merci beaucoup!
A recent trend is less oak in the flavor profile, especially
with Chardonnay. The neutral oak concept may really be a way of saying,
"It's really just unoaked because the barrels have been used for three
years, I need to store the wine in something and I can't afford new
barrels." Of course, it is a non-issue for most of the wine made but does
bear on many red wines.
The economics of this mean that if you get 23 cases of wine
from a typical barrel, a $1,000 barrel ends up costing the winery about $ .90
per bottle. This assumes a three year use and a resell value of $250 after that
use. An alternative is refurbishing the barrel, discussed further below. You
can see how a Cabernet that is on the wood for two years and thus maybe only
two cycles of use, and that you paid $1,200 for it, accelerates that cost. And
eventually to you as a consumer.
The all in cost (closure, label, grapes etc.) of a bottle of
wine is subject to about a 40% mark up at the retail level. So you pay about
$1.25 for each barrel aged bottle. The combination of everything that goes into
getting that bottle on your favorite local shelf makes it very difficult to
keep the sales price under $12. As the cost of corks -along with some quality
control issues - went up, more and more wineries sought cheaper alternate closures.
At first it was the less expensive wine moving to screw caps, which had their
own initial problems. The trend expanded to mid-price labels, especially those
meant for quick consumption and little need for ageing into a better wine. Now
you can select a screw capsule offering liners that allow various levels of oxygenation
that mimics cork closures. Something similar is now going on with oak
alternatives.
Starting out with value brands a few years back, it was sort
of, "Can you believe they just threw a few bushels of oak chips into that
big tank of Chardonnay?" It was, for the pinky-up segment of wine
drinkers, an OMG moment. I mean, really, they do that? Yes, and it works. Which
led to better mousetraps that are increasingly popular. So much so that a
Master Cooper with whom I spoke at the recent WiVi (see prior posts) trade show
has recently left a barrel making company to market barrel alternative
products.
As I've mentioned in past pages, this should not be looked
at as a form of getting away from proper wine making. It should be welcomed by
the consumer, especially those who like to afford a decent bottle with dinner
on a regular basis. It is just another way to get the desired effect at a lower
cost. Which is not to say that traditional barrels will go the way of the Dodo
bird. They will continue to be central for making fine, age worthy wines for
years. But, if demand is less it means pricing may stabilize and we'll save
some trees, both good results.
It is not uncommon for wineries to use barrel tasting,
alluded to in the opening paragraph, to select which cooperage firm they buy
from. Often, they use multiple sources to add variety to the wines in barrel
and provides the winemaker with a true palate, in the wine sense, with which to
blend the wine going to bottle. In reality, testing has shown that every barrel
has its own variations. This comes from aging of the original wood, staves from
different trees, no actual standard for levels of toast - different coopers
define medium toast to their own, and widely differentiated specifications -
and even how the belly of a barrel will take the toasting versus the stave
ends. There is a built in range of flavor profile within each barrel.
Science and better testing methods now available allow used
barrels to be reconfigured to provide nearly identical flavors to that of the
original. Oak aging adds a lot of technically named compounds. Maybe you are a
big fan of furfural and don't even know it? That's what we wine drinkers describe
as butterscotch but the white coated wizards like those tricky ways of saying
it. Remember your P Chem from high school? Then maybe you like the flavor
imparted by 4-methyl-guaiacol (spicy/smoky components). Many tasters pick up
vanilla as a typical indication of oak in Chardonnay. For some reason, the lab
guys call that vanillin.
The cost to redo your old barrel, engineered to give the
profile you like is about $250. A used French oak barrel at the price quoted
above, is worth about that on the resale market. You, in effect, get your
$1,000 barrel back for a net worth of half the price. But what if you are
looking for an economical way to get into oak aging without barrels. One method
is the use of kegs. Yes, similar to beer kegs in which oak staves can be
placed. Some even have a paddle wheel inside, connected to an external crank
that can be used to stir the wine (useful for sur lie) and the amount of oak
can be varied. Gaining traction and using high grade staves available from
major French cooperages, they make more effective use of oak trees and are easier
to sanitize, with the added attraction of much lower water use.
Have used barrels that you are happy with? Pick your
favorite oak flavors and toast, all in a tidy packet of oak spirals. This provides
a lot of surface area for flavor extraction. Quite a step up from the bushels
of chips. These and other products are finding favor with winemakers and should
be embraced by wine buyers. More alternative concepts are likely to be
increasingly available, and used, in the future. That said, there is little
chance that many of your special occasion wines will not be sleeping in barrels
for many years to come.
