A thrilling part of my job is hunting down a wine to please an unfamiliar palate.
Whether you crave the sharpness of capers, a sweet bar of Dairy Milk or a bag of pistachio nuts, I love making it my mission to prescribe a wine that will make your palate purr.
Sipping vino with comic legend Paul Whitehouse recently, I discovered, in between helpless bouts of laughter (I ended up snorting wine down my nose like a hooting chimp), that Paul’s palate is really tickled by white wines with a touch of oak.
But what exactly do we mean by ‘oak’, and how does an oaked wine differ from stuff that isn’t?
In the world of vino, oak refers to the wooden barrels used to age certain wines.
In the same way that chefs deploy a spice rack, winemakers use oak to impart flavours and textures, enhancing certain characteristics and bringing out the best in their vino.
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It’s a bit like the punchline of a joke or the framing of a picture; it’s that crucial detail that completes the final recipe and, when sensitively deployed, offers a sense of balance and harmony.
Ask OllyMartyn has found white bits in his wine. Should he worry?
These are most likely tartrate crystals, which are formed due to a process called ‘cold stabilisation’ in the winery. They’re harmless, but not nice if you accidentally sip them, as they feel crunchy in the mouth. To avoid them, simply filter the wine.The flavours oak can bring range from vanilla-style sweetness through to more toasty and rich spicy characteristics.
Where the oak comes from is a major factor.
French oak is generally more subtle than American oak, in part due to the raw material, but also because the former is labour-intensively split, whereas American oak is sawn – bursting open more cells to impart a more powerfully sweet coconut-like flavour.
Meanwhile, spicy Slavonian oak is often used in northern Italy, in the production of wines such as gutsy Amarone.
Wine Rules: No 38At a professional tasting, don’t stand too close to the spittoons!Don’t block access to them either; it’s frowned upon by professional tasters. Another thing to avoid is wearing a white shirt – stick to something with a pattern that can hide the odd spatter mark.
Barrels can also be toasted inside, which again gives a nuance to the wine.
And the age of the barrel is key. New barrels will give a much more oaky flavour than ones that have already been filled once or twice. Size matters as well.
The standard French barrique is 225 litres, but barrels can be massive – I’ve seen them as tall as a house in the U.S., hewn from lofty redwoods. And oak isn’t the only wood that’s used; you find cherry and acacia too.
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The effect is similar to adding flour to gravy, imparting a savoury depth.
Since oak barrels are expensive (a barrique costs upwards of £500), winemakers can use oak chips and oak staves to add flavour instead.
Unfortunately, the results tend to be unsubtle and sometimes smell like a carpenter’s jockstrap!When it comes to whites, you can generally identify an oaked vino from the colour, with the wine being richer and more golden in hue.
White Burgundy made from Chardonnay is often touted as the pinnacle of oaked whites, but I recently tasted Greywacke Chardonnay 2010 from New Zealand – 14.5 per cent and £21.95 from slurp.co.uk – and found it a thing of absolute beauty; bang for buck, it’s one of the most outstanding wines I’ve sampled so far this year.
Other grapes that fare well with oak are Chenin Blanc from South Africa, Encruzado from Portugal, white Rioja from Spain and sometimes Viognier when handled with care.
But like all good punchlines, oak can be overdone, leaving the wine feeling clumsy and ham-fisted.
A lightness of touch is what’s called for. And if you find yourself raising a glass with Paul Whitehouse, remember to bring a hanky for when you end up weeping into your wine with laughter.
Wine newsFacebook has started selling wine in the States via its new Gifts store. With social media a huge topic for the wine trade in general, this could be a huge step into a brave new world of wine marketing. If it works across the pond we may see it here, so watch this space!
