Like certain paint colors on cars, strong oak in wine seems to go in and out of fashion every fifteen to twenty years.
D&J 600 Liter Barrel
Powerful oak in wine seems to have gone the way of the Man Bun yet again.
Is this regional, a fabrication of mine, or a rumor? Is it an absolute? Nothing is.
But more often than not, I hear that winemakers in our territory prefer to let the varietal and the terrior do the talking.
If you are leaning towards less new oak in your program, I have three suggestions for how to apply this methodology:
1. Large Format Oak:
300, 400, 500, and 600 Liter barrels are available from D&J, who also make gorgeous Oak Tanks.
2. Use a lower number of higher quality barrels to augment an otherwise neutral oak barrel program.
3. As late as two weeks before bottling, add a conservative amount of finishing tannin to a wine aged in neutral oak in the form of liquid oak extract. You can buy a testing kit or order liters of finishing tannin at the US Amedee store and get 10% off with discount code ENOTOOLS10.
Is this regional, a fabrication of mine, or a rumor? Is it an absolute? Nothing is.
But more often than not, I hear that winemakers in our territory prefer to let the varietal and the terrior do the talking.
If you are leaning towards less new oak in your program, I have three suggestions for how to apply this methodology:
1. Large Format Oak:
300, 400, 500, and 600 Liter barrels are available from D&J, who also make gorgeous Oak Tanks.
2. Use a lower number of higher quality barrels to augment an otherwise neutral oak barrel program.
3. As late as two weeks before bottling, add a conservative amount of finishing tannin to a wine aged in neutral oak in the form of liquid oak extract. You can buy a testing kit or order liters of finishing tannin at the US Amedee store and get 10% off with discount code ENOTOOLS10.
