To Oak or Not to Oak

The days when every quality bottle of wine had to show a touch of overt oak are happily over. it is rare to find one of those abominations from the early 2000s in which a mouthful of burnt toast or raw wood chips made the critics sing “very serious wine.”Many winemakers, some producing very expensive wines, have sworn off oak in favor of purity of fruit or a more precise reflection of terroir. I recently visited Promontory (a Harlan Project) that makes very expensive Napa Cabernet with no new oak. The wine was extraordinary but far from a standard issue Napa cult wine.

In fact, the question of whether to use oak or not has become an ideological divide replete with sinners, reprobates and sell outs according to the holier-than-thous on both sides.

For some fans of natural wine, the use of new oak is a crime. (Used oak that imparts no wood flavor is still acceptable.) If you have good terroir and sound viticulture you don’t need oak as a crutch to produce flavor, so the argument goes.

But this message hasn’t yet influenced the general wine drinking public for whom a bit of oak is still the marker of quality wine, and for the most part, it is still oaked wines that command astronomical prices.

What puzzles me is why we are so interested in choosing sides in this debate.

If wine is about variation then we should welcome both pure fruit expressions as well as the full range of oak flavors as long as the oak is integrated.

I wonder how long it will take for oak to come back in fashion.