Oak and its supposed integration over time, part <i>n</i>

S

Saina Nieminen

Saina Nieminen
Gianni Gagliardo Barolo Riserva 1997
I couldn't find any info on this particular wine, but all other Barolos listed on the producer's website use Barriques and have done so since the late '80s. The wood seems integrated/not obvious. It has aromas of dark fruit and some savoury/earthy aromas. Quite dry on the palate though this year seemed to make so many wines with pronounced sweetness, nice structure though the tannins are still quite prominent.

But my problem with this wine is that it doesn't taste of Nebbiolo. And this is why I find it so annoying when, after complaining of a wine's "modernity", I'm told to open them once they have enough age for the oak to integrate. Oak, in my admittedly limited experience, just doesn't seem to disappear even with age. Though no longer obvious at this stage, it still seems to mask the wine's true character. Is it too presumptuous to say that the oak in a strongly oaked wine doesn't integrate; it just becomes different over time?

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originally posted by Otto Nieminen: Oak, in my admittedly limited experience, just doesn't seem to disappear even with age. Though no longer obvious at this stage, it still seems to mask the wine's true character. Is it too presumptuous to say that the oak in a strongly oaked wine doesn't integrate; it just becomes different over time?
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Otto, I personally have never understood the concept that oak integrates over time. I have always chosen not to argue when folks come up with the idea. I just let the drift flow to something more reasonable (in my mind, at least).

. . . . . Pete
 
originally posted by Otto Nieminen:
Oak and its supposed integration over time, part nGianni Gagliardo Barolo Riserva 1997
I couldn't find any info on this particular wine, but all other Barolos listed on the producer's website use Barriques and have done so since the late '80s. The wood seems integrated/not obvious. It has aromas of dark fruit and some savoury/earthy aromas. Quite dry on the palate though this year seemed to make so many wines with pronounced sweetness, nice structure though the tannins are still quite prominent.

But my problem with this wine is that it doesn't taste of Nebbiolo. And this is why I find it so annoying when, after complaining of a wine's "modernity", I'm told to open them once they have enough age for the oak to integrate. Oak, in my admittedly limited experience, just doesn't seem to disappear even with age. Though no longer obvious at this stage, it still seems to mask the wine's true character. Is it too presumptuous to say that the oak in a strongly oaked wine doesn't integrate; it just becomes different over time?
Click to expand...

Otto, it may be a matter of semantics but I would say that oak used appropriately 'integrates' over time in the sense that I often find it [and other things] as an obviously distinct component in a newly made wine whereas it has become part of a whole in later years.

I wouldn't describe oak as 'disappearing' in the sense that the wine will always taste different because it was there in the first place but it shouldn't dominate or 'stick out' in the aroma and taste of the wine as it might have done, at least somewhat, initially.

Of course there are oaked an unoaked versions of various wines by the same producer with Loire Sauvignon Blancs a simple example. One may like one or the other and sometimes both but they do taste quite different initially and later although IMO the oak does become part of a [changing] wine with age which I might also describe as 'integrating'.
 
1993 Elio Altare Barolo Vigneto Arborina - Italy, Piedmont, Langhe, Barolo (2/4/2011)

Still annoyingly marked by its elevage, but not obliterated by it. The coffee aromas seemed to meld with its Barolocity. One of the more successful modernists I've tried with some age, but not an experiment I care to repeat.

1995 M. Chapoutier Ermitage Le Pavillon - France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, Hermitage (2/4/2011)

Yuck. This is still completely dominated by its elevage. It shows sculpted tannin, fruit, acidity, but no sense of place. Maybe it will outlive the treatment, but I am not optimistic.
 
Otto,

I understand what you mean.

But I think that judging a late '90s Riserva bottling on too much oak use is probably a good recipe for heartbreak. That was the height of the new oak barrique use, and a Riserva would see more time in it.

Cliff,

Please don't write off Altare in 1996. In fact, I would recommend that producer to you in that year (Arborina or Brunate) to see how a great expression of Modernism can come together.
 
I am not sure what happened. I doubt the treatment was dialed back at that time, but I have never specifically asked.

In my opinion, it works.
 
The Altare was much nicer than the Chapoutier (or a recent 1993 Clerico) in terms of the treatment's relationship to the material -- what I took to be wood influences seemed to blend with grape and place, though not as completely as I would have liked.
 
For whatever it may (or not) be worth, I met Altare in San Francisco in '93 and he was immensely surprised that I didn't use new oak, and extremely curious as well. When I visited with him in '96 he said quite plainly that he was moderating his use of new oak.
 
Sorry Levi. I thought of your admonition to respect winemakers and their products and winced when I typed that, but the psychic pain couldn't quite compel restraint in this case.

There are some Nebbiolo flavors in there also.

I think many of you have wines that helped convert you to the 'natural' side by being 'good' according to the wine press and certain critics but undrinkable or at least somehow just wrong to your palate. (And, perhaps, quite expensive.) For me Altare's Barolo was just such a wine, and although it did have some commendable attributes - one can drink it, certainly - one of the flavors in the taste profile was vanilla coke. Which didn't quite come together with the rest of what was going on like Matisse's green stripe.

I think Nigel is right as far as the original broader question the thread raised.
 
In my experience, oak never goes away. Some other flavors emerge and may make it less obvious. In some cases, when fruit subsides, the oak gets bigger, although also older. I have had winemakers tell me that in 10 years, there wine will taste like more traditional wine. I'm to polite to ask there, but will here, why, if the oak will integrate, does one go to the expense and trouble of using it in the first place?
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
...why, if the oak will integrate, does one go to the expense and trouble of using it in the first place?
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The commonly-said answer is that it makes the wines easy-to-drink and "appealing" when still young.
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
...why, if the oak will integrate, does one go to the expense and trouble of using it in the first place?
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The commonly-said answer is that it makes the wines easy-to-drink and "appealing" when still young.
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And indeed it does if one likes the taste of vanilla and oxygenation (which probably do taste good to the human desire for sweetness, etc.). But if one thinks one is ultimately making a wine that offers traditional rewards, why would this be one's aim, even if you could have your cake and eat it too?
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
But if one thinks one is ultimately making a wine that offers traditional rewards, why would this be one's aim, even if you could have your cake and eat it too?
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Sell it sooner.

Get high point scores and hype them in order to sell your lesser wines.

(And, well, um, isn't it counter-factual to discuss a maker of traditional wines who uses barrique?)
 
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