The Wine Lover: Time in barrels a key to fine winemaking

Barrel aging is one of the most essential parts of making red wine and many chardonnays.
All fine red wines receive some amount of time in oak before they are bottled and distributed. Most reds get between 10 months and two years, although in more extreme cases, reds can get as much as four years of aging.
Many chardonnays spend some time in oak barrels, as well, although usually they don’t get much over a year. Chardonnay, being white, can’t stand too much oak and will become flabby and undesirable if you leave it in the barrel for too long.
But red wine benefits greatly from oak. The oak barrels impart extra flavor and complexity, as well as tannins. The time the wine spends sitting in the cellar also allows it to mellow from the shock of pressing and fermentation.
There are two main types of oak available: American oak and French oak. Hungarian oak is also used, but not anywhere near the extent the American and French woods are. American oak barrels usually run $400 to $800 apiece and will impart strong tannins and flavors to the wine. French oak is more expensive, ranging from $700 to $1,100, and will impart softer tannins, as well as a toasted vanilla characteristic to many wines.
French oak is ideal for a lighter-bodied wine, like pinot noir, because it won’t overpower it. American oak is used commonly with wines like cabernet sauvignon and zinfandel, because these are already fuller-bodied reds and won’t be overpowered by the oak’s intensity.
It is very important not to “over-oak” a wine. A wine that has spent too much time in oak will taste like oak and nothing else. Nobody wants to feel like they are drinking a two-by-four.
Oak barrels lose their potency fairly quickly and will be somewhat neutral after only a few years. One practice some wine makers implement is to split their wines up into new-oak and old-oak barrels. When they are ready to bottle, they will blend the wines back together to get just the amount of oak they desire.
Another couple of uses for old oak barrels are to create a slight mellowing affect in white wines and for simple wine storage space. After about five years, an oak barrel doesn’t have much flavor left to impart and is considered “neutral.”
Some winemakers will use neutral oak to help a white wine mellow. In fact, old oak is ideal for chardonnay and other fuller-bodied white wines. It is almost never used with lighter-bodied white wines, like Riesling and sauvignon blanc.
The next time you are out tasting, ask about the oak the winery uses and how long the wines spend in the barrel. It will usually give you a pretty good idea of the type of wine they are trying to make. Cheers!
 Austin Twohig is a certified sommelier and partner in The Santa Cruz Experience, which conducts winery tours in the Santa Cruz Mountains. E-mail him at au****@th********************.com.