How much oak is too much oak?

Just discussing an example of a wine that saw too much time in older (used) oak barrels, the 1998 Pegau Cuvee Laurence. Here the tannins are drying, and the entire wine seems to show the effects of dessication. Here the Reservee is now the better wine.

Oak is still the major affliction with less expensive New World wines. I am still amazed at how few people point to this, but I can generally pick out the New World wines (even up to $75) based on this characteristic alone. In the cheaper wines, there seems to be a use of green wood chips smelling more of lumber than oak barrels. This means for me that most low to moderately priced New World (California) wines are not as drinkable as similarly priced Old World wines--in fact the green lumber makes me sick to the stomach...
 
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
originally posted by SFJoe:
The LaLas illustrate the importance of keeping the wine in barrel long enough, curiously, as does Clos Rougeard.
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I heard that if you keep the wine long enough, it becomes old oak.
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Heh.
 
Exploding heads and Gummi Bears to the contrary, oak has its place in wine when used judiciously. Might the oak integration curve (in red wines in general, shiraz in particular) be somewhat related to what we'd consider the wine's dumb phase? New oak seems to dominate the flavor profile in the wine's youth, seemingly integrating 5-10 years out as the fruit blossoms. If elevage occurs in larger oak vessels (foudre, hogsheads, etc) the impact should be lessened, yet the oxidative benefits of barrel aging continue. My experience with 36-48 month barrel programs in the Barossa lead me to believe that the ideal combination for new world wines from warmer climates would be to use a higher percentage of neutral hogsheads combined with some new oak without too much toast. The winemaker has the option to transfer the wine between vessels to even out the oak influence or to leave everything as-is and blend the wine prior to bottling, declassifying any barrels that just don't work.

I don't recall if this is how Guigal works with his oak regimen, but everything seems to be in place at about ten years of age and the wines' predominate flavors are of Syrah, not of wood. The Rockford Basket Press Shiraz and Torbreck Run Rig and Factor also have this tendency, and I believe that the Lagier-Meredith Syrah will have a similar trajectory.

Getting back to Chardonnay, I'd suggest tasting the Stoller alongside a bottle of the DDO Arthur Chardonnay. Veronique's wine doesn't seem as oaky initially but has a little more creamy character than Melissa Burr's wine from Stoller. If you were to put a bottle of each in the cellar for about five years, I think that when opened they'd both be structured very similarly to one another, with the major differences due to the differences in the vineyard (although situated only a few miles apart, DDO is at a higher elevation and has slightly older vines, while the Stoller soil is more vigorous and has a slightly different clonal mix). In both cases, barrique treatment is used to provide a frame for the wine, which is how it should be. As with a painting, sometimes it just takes a little longer for the eye to adjust to the way the frame affects the artwork, but once you've lived with it for awhile, it all works.

-Eden (disinclined to make any sort of case defending the rationale behind the oak regimen of say, Mollydooker, Alban, Turley, et al)
 
Exploding heads and Gummi Bears to the contrary, oak has its place in wine when used judiciously.
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You misinterpret my cranial explosion. For the better part of a decade I've been the lonely outcast voice here saying nice things about Turley Cellars petite syrahs (yes, that's how they spell it). I even poured one for vandergrift when he came to town, to fairly little avail. Now suddenly someone else agrees?

Sensory overload.
 
I thought I saw the correct spelling on the bottle I had. But I actually like the wines, and find them impossible to drink when young.
 
All the bottles I have on hand say petite syrah. But there's nothing older than '96 or younger than '03, so maybe there's been some adjustment along the way.
 
or so my friend tells me. I've liked the '94 more than the '93, and I think I have a bottle of the '95 somewhere (plus a '94 of the Earthquake Zin). Are they still getting good prices at auction?
 
For me, if the oak dominates the flavor, it's too much. I like this wine, but I think the oak might be used to hide a flaw. Instead of thinking of art and a frame, think of makeup and the oak acting as a base.
But there was plenty of nice Chardonnay flavor to this wine.
 
While I am able to tolerate higher oak levels than many who post here (more than Brad Kane, less than Chris Coad, much less than the Wine Advocate's Bordeaux reviewer) my main problem is that I have no idea how to predict whether oak will integrate. Tasting young Roty I think I'll hate the wines but given time they're wonderful. Except in 1997 when the toasty oak didn't integrate. I hate Saintsbury 'Brown Ranch' Pinot when young (creamy oak!) and really like it with about 4-5 years. Other wines never integrate their oak. Who can predict?
 
originally posted by Jay Miller:
While I am able to tolerate higher oak levels than many who post here (more than Brad Kane, less than Chris Coad, much less than the Wine Advocate's Bordeaux reviewer) my main problem is that I have no idea how to predict whether oak will integrate. Tasting young Roty I think I'll hate the wines but given time they're wonderful. Except in 1997 when the toasty oak didn't integrate. I hate Saintsbury 'Brown Ranch' Pinot when young (creamy oak!) and really like it with about 4-5 years. Other wines never integrate their oak. Who can predict?
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I can predict.

Also, I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
 
originally posted by Chris Coad:
originally posted by Jay Miller:
While I am able to tolerate higher oak levels than many who post here (more than Brad Kane, less than Chris Coad, much less than the Wine Advocate's Bordeaux reviewer) my main problem is that I have no idea how to predict whether oak will integrate. Tasting young Roty I think I'll hate the wines but given time they're wonderful. Except in 1997 when the toasty oak didn't integrate. I hate Saintsbury 'Brown Ranch' Pinot when young (creamy oak!) and really like it with about 4-5 years. Other wines never integrate their oak. Who can predict?
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I can predict.

Also, I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
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But will they answer when you call?
 
originally posted by Chris Coad:
'yummy' pales in the company of 'fascinating yet challenging'.
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Sometimes it does. Other times fascinating yet challenging gives one a headache that can only be soothed by yummy.
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I think the key thing here is that different people have different ways of evaluating 'yummy' and 'challenging'. I don't see the need to insult wines that are easy to like, i.e. yummy.

For example, Maximin Grunhauser kabinett is easy for me to like. I call it yummy. For others it is challenging and too sour. This happened last night.
 
Going back to the original subject of this thread...

Christmas Day lunch today (not the great traditional big family event in Spain Christmas Eve dinner is) with a magnum of Dominio de Tares Cepas Vellas 2001. This winery was one of the pioneers of the rebirth of Bierzo and the menca grape, and many critics including myself have knocked them for being heavy-handed with their oak treatment. Well, this wine, at age seven, only reminds me of the oak in its contributions to the cedary and fine leather aromas that are part of a phenomenal bouquet that also includes, in no particular order, heady violets, the intense graphite I tend to associate with slate soils, plums, cherries, wet earth... It's now velvety, almost sily, in the mouth, but with just the little whiff of rusticity to keep it real and peasant, and it's got good red fruit, no oaky splinters, and it's long and does show this sort of kinship with fine Saint-milion that had people likening menca to cabernet franc. Hey, this is great wine! I'll tone down my criticism of Tares' cooperage mania in the future.
 
That's interesting. The '03, tasted this summer, was nothing but wood. (Though maybe I'm confused...is the "Exaltos Cepas Viejas" the same wine?) But the '01, tasted in March, was much better, though I think you liked it more than I did (from 750). Maybe I'm just not being patient enough.

Dominio de Tares 2003 Bierzo Exaltos Cepas Viejas (Northwest Spain) Overwhelmed with coconut and vanilla, which completely obscure any other characteristics in the wine. Just no good. (6/08)

Dominio de Tares 2001 Bierzo Cepas Viejas (Northwest Spain) Graphite and the darkest black dust (fruit? earth? coal? hard to tell). Strong but not strident, with the sweet scent of wood in the majority but not overpowering. While this will certainly last longer, I dont know enough about it to judge whether or not the fruit such as it is will make a comeback; my guess is that it wont, but I cant say for sure. (3/08)
 
It's chaos, brand-name wise, with Tares. The Cepas Viejas vas labelled 'Cepas Vellas', in the Galician language, within Spain, at least until a few years ago. And the Exaltos is only sold on the US market. I suspect that it's just a different name for the Cepas Viejas/Vellas. I haven't tasted the 2003.
 
Thanks, Victor. Regarding the '01, then, how much longer would you expect it to develop, if at all?
 
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