How I learned to stop worrying and love oaky wines

Don’t fear the timber

This is inspired by an article by m’learned colleague Tom Hewson, whose Substack is worth following, especially for the fizz curious.

One of the useful all-purpose things you can say at a wine tasting is "it's a bit oaky." That's assuming that the wine is actually oaky. It's funny how certain wines can develop toasty flavours without any oak involved. It must make winemakers roll their eyes when that's someone's response to your wine—you've put all the work in, laboured over the grapes, tended the fermenting vats lovingly at 4am, and all you get is "it's a bit oaky."

I admit I have done this in the past. In fact, I used to be quite the oak puritan. I think it comes from the era I started out appreciating wine. In the 1990s and 2000s, good quality red wine and some whites equalled oak. Usually the most expensive wine in a line-up, would be the most lavishly oaked.

Langmeil - they love a bit of oak

This love for oak was particularly prevalent in America. Just as with hops and craft beer, certain winemakers took a European technique and took it too far. There were such things as “200% “new oak in wine, meaning the wine was aged in new oak and then racked into more new oak for further ageing. More is more! French oak barrels were expensive, meaning that smells of vanilla, spices, and a toasty quality were a sign of quality—or the next best thing—a sign of money.

That was on expensive wines. Cheaper ones would have the dreaded hand of oak chips. It was particularly sad tasting distinctive wines from, say, Portugal, and then getting the familiar, tedious taste of sweet vanilla on the finish, as if someone at the producer, or more likely the supermarket, didn't trust their customer to enjoy the wine as it was.

The natural wine movement began partly as a reaction to such wines. I recall more than one winemaker comparing heavily-oaked wines to overly made-up women who were obliterating their natural beauty.

In retrospect, however, I think my oak aversion went too far.