Burgundy complexities – The influence of new oak

The use of oak especially new oak in Burgundy wines has always caused controversy, as some like a lot of oak while others prefer the wines without significant influence of oak.

I often taste from barrels in Burgundy, and most tastings I try to taste at least one wine both from an old barrel and also from a new oak barrel. I do this to see the effect of the new oak on the wine, and also to learn about the effects of the different types of oak barrels.

Domaine Grivot the 2015 vintage – oak from several tonneliers is used

The complexity is mind-boggling

This is however a very complex subject to investigate as there are many producers of oak barrels, and they offer different toasts of the oak, and barrels made of oak from different forests in France. Finally the type of oak varies as do the dryness of the wood used .. the age of the trees used for producing the barrels.

The combinations are endless .. and one can therefore only scratch the surface regarding the taste of different types of oak barrels.

The dimensions … how oak influence the wine

The type of barrel is very important, as is the oak used for the barrel, the toasting and to some extend also the tonnelier (producer) all can have a significant effect on how the barrel supports and influences the bouquet and taste of the wine.

The next dimension is the percentage of new oak used – there is a lot of focus is on this, but in reality this is only a part of the picture, as it should be seen in relation to the oak used.

Finally it’s also important how long is the wine exposed to the oak, some adjust the oak impression by taking the wine of the oak casks and into stainless steel tanks to finish the elevage.

So – type of oak – toasting – percentage of new oak – time on oak.

This seems simple .. but rarely is. Firstly many producers use different types of new oak for the same wine to ad complexity, and of to avoid a dominant impression from one tonnelier. Secondly the one year old barrels, and two year old barrels also leaves an impression on the wine. Perhaps not so much on the bouquet, but the tannins supports the wine and ads structure even in used barrels.

The sensitivity – the effects of new oak

A lot of the discussions are related to … too much oak … and this is a matter of taste and time. Firstly it’s often a question about how the oak is integrated in the wine, this can take time, and even quite modest amounts of new oak can give a quite dominant impression of oak in the wine.

This is all talk … but let me give an example.

I tasted two vintages of wines from one producer – 2014 in March 2016 from bottle, and 2015 from cask in June 2016.

The producer makes wines from two appellations, and uses around 30% new oak for the village wines, and uses oak from two different tonneliers (50/50) equivalent til 15% of one type of new oak in the wine and 15% of the other – i.e. 70% older barrels.

The the impression of the oak is very different – as the barrels from one tonnelier mainly offer support and tannins, whereas the barrels from the other barrel makers offer a quite distinct somewhat toasted note in some of the wines.

The toasted note is clearly more dominant in the wines from one appellation than in the wines from the other appellation – even though only 15% of the type of new oak barrels are used. I tasted this difference in both the 2014s tasted from bottle, and the 2015s from cask.

One appellation is clearly absorbing the oak better in this case, whereas the other struggle to integrate the oak from one tonnelier … even though its only 15% of new oak of this type.

This is not to say that the oak will not integrate – its just to make a point – even 15% new oak of one type can actually make a wine seem oaky in its early youth.

Further observations …

I have just started exploring this topic, but I have already seen several examples of wines from the Chambolle appellation that needs more time to integrate the oak – than other appellations from the same producer made with the same type and amount of oak.

The Chambolle wines made from a limestone dominated terroir seem the enhance certain oak notes when the wine is very young, and even though the amount of new oak used is modest, the wines can seem very oaky in their early youth – and the oak notes can seem very toasted at times.

… thats it so far .. will explore more