Oak has long been used for wine storage during fermentation and aging. It was only during the previous century that oak began to be used in wine making as a means of imparting a sought after flavor. There are many ways that oak can affect the taste of wine, and we will explore many of them.
Instructions
Identify Oaky Flavors in Wine
1. Taste how oak can affect Chardonnay. Open your oak fermented Chardonnay and pour a little into the glass. Swirl it around in the glass and smell. You should almost immediately smell, among other fruit notes, a strong scent of oak. Take a very small sip and slurp it gently so that the wine covers the entire palate of your tongue. The first thing you will notice is the overpowering flavor of vanilla and butter. Then you will start to taste the fruit. It will be full, ripe tropical fruit like mango, pineapple and even notes of papaya, perhaps. Now, open your stainless steel fermented Chardonnay. This wine has not spent any time in oak barrels, fermenting or aging. Pour a bit and smell. You will notice that there is no oaky smell. Now taste the same way you did with the first wine. The first thing you taste will be fruit. It will be brighter fruit flavors this time, however, including apricot and peach and maybe even ripe, green apple flavors. All around, the stainless steel fermented Chardonnay will be lighter and less heavy on the tongue.
2. Taste how oak can affect Sauvignon Blanc. Open your Fume Blanc and pour a little into your glass. This is an oak aged Sauvignon Blanc from California. Swirl it and smell. Although the first thing you smell may not be oak, it will have a soft, almost vanilla-hued scent. Take a little in your mouth and gently slurp it. The fruit flavors will be very soft. Under-ripe peach and other stone fruits will predominate with a wisp of vanilla in the backgorund. Now open your Sancerre. This is a stainless steel fermented and aged Sauvignon Blanc from the Loire Valley, France. Swirl it and smell. It may be floral, but there will definitely be a citrus scent. Taste and slurp and you will have an explosion of grapefruit and tart orange. That is because there was no oak to soften the acidity of the grape, the way there was in the Fume Blanc.
3. Taste other ways oak is used in wine. Open your bottle of very inexpensive, mass marketed Cabernet Sauvignon. Because the popular flavor profile for Cabernet Sauvignon is oakiness, most mass marketed Cabernet Sauvignons try to emulate that. The problem is, however, that oak barrels are expensive, so to cut costs most large producers of cheap Cabs ferment and age their wines in stainless steel and dump either oak wood chips or, in some very unfortunate cases, oak sawdust into their wines to impart an "oak" flavor. These pieces are strained out before bottling, of course, but doing this doesn't achieve the same flavor profile that fermenting and aging in oak barrels does. Pour a bit of the wine and smell. The scent of oak will, most likely, be overpowering. Now taste it. Up front on your palate, all you will be able to taste is dark, cooked fruit flavor. Then, at the back of your palate as you swallow, you will be overwhelmed with a powerful oak taste. This is what many wine professionals call a "disjointed" flavor profile. The oak is there, but it is disconnected from the rest of the wine almost as if it has been added as an afterthought. This is, unfortunately, very common in mass-produced and inexpensive oaky wines.
Tags: stainless steel, fermented Chardonnay, first thing, flavor profile, Sauvignon Blanc, stainless steel fermented