The Right Match

Everything in winemaking is a balance and that includes oak. In the recent past there has been criticism and negative publicity relating to our supposed overuse of American Oak, especially in South Australian Shiraz.

In the late1980s some wineries started producing bigger more flavoursome and intensely rich wines. Obviously these fruit rich wines could handle more oak than had previously been possible. A few of these wines were cranked right up and had massive extraction and massive amounts of oak.  From my perspective, as long as the oak is in balance with the rest of the wine, it doesn't matter how much oak it contains.  It’s only when it’s out of balance that a problem arises.

When you think of high-quality Cabernet Sauvignon from Margaret River or Coonawarra you think of French oak because there is no doubt French Oak and Cabernet Sauvignon from these areas go together beautifully. They are indeed a perfect accompaniment to each other.  Likewise, when you think of big McLaren Vale of Barossa Shiraz most people would naturally think of American Oak and for good reason.  The vanilla, coconut and other characteristics that American Oak imparts to big Shiraz is a great match.

Due to the over oaking publicity a number of South Australian wineries started playing around with the use of French oak for their icon Shiraz wines or in some cases released new labels.  A few of these include, Peter Lehmann Eight Songs, Penfolds RWT Shiraz, Eileen Hardy and Peter Lehmann Stonewell to name just a few.

Quality French oak will provide a more subtle finished wine frequently with creamy ultra fine grained tannins that provide a very pleasant mouth feel. Obviously a more subtle wine is also easier to consume on release.  The big question is “are these wines better?” Before you can answer that question you have to actually define what the words ‘better than’ means, or to put it another way, better than what? Perhaps the question should be rephrased to one or two alternatives.

‘Is a wine that uses well-balanced French Oak better than a wine that uses to much American Oak for the fruit available’; the answer is obviously yes, but that is only the because the American Oaked wine is out of balance not because it used American Oak.

If the second alternative question was, ‘does French Oak provide a more subtle wine than American Oak’ the answer here is yes in most cases. But that leads us to the next question, ‘does increased subtlety mean better’ and the answer is no, just different. In a lot of ways that is what this debate is really all about, different not better!

In many cases the people who are criticising the supposedly over oaked big Barossa Shiraz are not complaining about the balance of the oak, it’s that the oak is noticeable to them because they don't particularly like the style of wine that uses large amounts of American Oak, even if the wine is in perfect balance. So this gets back to a matter of preferred wine style rather than the oak used.

There is absolutely no doubt the four wines mentioned above that use French oak are a lot more subtle than many other wines in the same league.  The best example would be to compare the 94 Stonewell (American) to the 96 (French). It’s not just a matter of changing oak, they are totally different styles. The 94 Stonewell for example is a big wine with loads of fruit and oak that needs years to integrate and is still to hit its peak. The 96 is refined and already as good as it’s going to get. To my palate the 96 Stonewell is a perfectly constructed wine but completely boring. On the other hand, I enjoy the elegance of the Eight Songs from the same winery. In summary, it’s a matter of “being different” rather than being right or wrong and big Barossa or McLaren Vale Shiraz and American Oak (when in balance) is a match make in heaven.

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Ric ©