Over the barrel?

The best wines are always aged in oaken barrels, right? Not necessarily, especially when it comes to chardonnay.

By CHRIS SHERMAN
Published May 30, 2007

ine is not made from or by mice, moose, loons, emus, toads, lizards, jaguars, goats or horses.

It's true, no animals were harmed in the making of your wine. Despite the critters on the labels, what's inside the bottle comes from the plant kingdom, except for the yeasty little fungi that ferment the wine.

In wine you taste plants, grapes, of course, and wood. Specifically oak trees.

That may not sound exciting but when the grape is chardonnay and the oak is from new American barrels, it can produce a conflict as intricate and brutal as any blood battle on the Discovery Channel.

The fight between chardonnay, the world's favorite white wine, and oak barrels, the ancient icon of winemaking, has brewed for a decade, heating up in the last two years. A growing number of wineries proudly tout chardonnays that are "naked" or unoaked, and some consumers snap them up as if they were trans-fat free.

Hmmm. Weren't we just in love with barrel-fermented chardonnay and its creamy texture? What's up with oak?

Chardonnay has always confused us for the grapevines grow so easily it covers a multitude of terrains and sins. As popular with customers as it is with farmers, chardonnay is made from Australia to Chile to Burgundy. Its quality runs from $5 generic to $50 grand cru. It can be tart, cloyingly sweet, filled with peaches and pears, rocks and minerals, butterscotch and coconut, crisp or creamy.

As with any wine, the taste of chardonnay reflects where it grew and when, the ripeness at picking, how it's fermented and blended, and ultimately how and how long it's aged, in wood or stainless steel.

To sort them out you can go dizzy reading back labels. Stick with a favorite brand or divide chardonnays in two camps. This school holds the chardonnays of the New World to be sun-ripe, fruit forward and heavily oaked, while chardonnay of Chablis and other white Burgundies are lean, elegant and, hurrahs all around, rarely made with any oak aging.

Those are the extremes of the debate. The truth lies in the middle where oak specifications are as geeky and complex as grapes. Winemakers of the world seek oak from particular forests from Wisconsin to France and Slovenia, and commission old cooperage houses to make their barrels. Some toss oak chips into tanks like backyard barbecuers.

Why? Barrels contribute to wine, red and white, in several ways, once the oak has been bent and the inside of the staves toasted. Wine absorbs flavors like vanilla, cinnamon, caramel, smoke and butterscotch from the wood and can pick up woody tannins. At the same time, pores in the wood absorb other tannins and let oxygen in to soften the wine. Cheapskate alert: Handmade barrels cost more and wear out sooner than steel.

How much flavor the wood adds varies, expert George Foote of Chateau Ste. Michelle, told wine lovers at the Tampa Bay Wine & Food Festival this month.

To demonstrate, he poured two glasses of the same chardonnay aged in different barrels, made by the same cooper and with the same level of toasting. Cold Creek chard in a new French barrel was smoky and spicy with hints of vanilla. From a new American barrel, the oak was more pronounced with flavors from coconut to herbal and slick mineral. Yet both are useful blended in different degrees.

For a great New World chardonnay, Ste. Michelle will continue to use oak, carefully as integral to smooth creamy and toasty wines that taste of apples and nuts. Big wines worth aging.

"The trend that goes to no oak is not best for our grapes, " Foote said.

Those wineries that disagree and do without oak report growing success. One Napa winery, St. Supery, has stopped using any oak for its chardonnay, but most wineries with oak-free chardonnays also make other wines aged in barrels.

"It's not a question of oak or no oak, " said Laurence Sterling, whose family's Iron Horse Vineyards made its first unoaked chardonnay in 2005. "It's are we over-oaking?"

The Sterlings and winemaker David Munksgard said yes, Californians have often overoaked. But Iron Horse could avoid the need for oak, if they chose the right grapes, from the right vineyard and pressed them carefully. "We made the 2005 and 2006 unoaked simply because it tasted great." They sold 2, 000 cases of the '06 and will probably do more this year, along with producing three other chards, which are aged in oak. Another style of chardonnay? Just what we needed.

Understandably labeled, it is.

Chris Sherman can be reached at (727) 893-8585 or e-mail sherman@sptimes.com.

Waiter, there's a tree in my wine

Wine lovers demand barrel aging for red wines, but there's growing debate and choice in chardonnays. Classic French Chablis was not aged in oak, many inexpensive chardonnays are not either. Most good chardonnays from the United States and Australia use some aging and fermentation in oak barrels, but a number are now "naked" or "unoaked."

No-oak brands

Old World: Most Chablis, other white Burgundy and many Italian.

New World: Chehalem, Sierra Vista, Brampton, Domaine Chandon, Mer et Soleil Villa Maria, Toad Hollow, Iron Horse, St. Supery. Kunde Estates and Four Vines all make some unoaked chardonnay

Label clues

Unoaked, oak-free, unwooded, naked (Australia), INOX (Spain and Canada). Fermented in stainless steel.

How much oak

- New oak barrels have stronger flavor than old used barrels, because the wood is fresher.

- Smaller barrels deliver more flavor than big, because the more wood is exposed to less wine.

- American oak varieties have more open pores, while wood from European forests are tighter.

- Barrel staves and heads can be toasted, from light to heavy, the darker toasting adding more caramel flavors.

[Last modified May 29, 2007, 16:48:13]