Do you know anything about spanish wines?

[RichardFlack]

OK Berry, we’ll try to be a little less wise-ass.

In fact, American oak IS “traditional” in Rioja. For many years Rioja wines were criticized as being dried out and tired and dead in oak. When someone starts talking about “traditional” Rioja, my ears start to bleed. I suppose by some measures, Murrietta is the most traditional of all.

But it’s more complicated than that. You have many kinds of oak. Is all French oak or all American oak the same? If so, you’d have to argue that all Cabernet Sauvignon is the same, at least as long as it’s grown within the same political borders. So then all American Cab Sauv is identical, whether grown in Florida or Montana, and all French Cab Sauv is the same, whether grown in Bordeaux or Marseilles. Obviously that’s not the case and ditto for oak.

Then you have the way in which the oak was prepared, which is perhaps akin to the winemaking when discussing a wine. And then you have the age of the containers, and the size, which all contribute. So it becomes difficult to make clear, unambiguous comments regarding oak. If you taste the same wine put into different oak, you’ll see what I mean. It’s NOT all that easy to say that this is French and that is American and that is Hungarian and that is Slovenian.

But all that aside, Murrietta has changed their winemaking over the recent years. They’re perhaps more “modern” in that they want to let their wines be enjoyable young as well as old. But don’t fall into the trap of thinking those are mutually exclusive. Muga for example, makes the Torre Muga, which is a really nice wine. But they suggest that you drink it young. Why? Because as it ages, it becomes more like a “traditional” wine and less like a big, fruity, young wine. So if you drink it young, you can either enjoy it or criticize it as being “modern”, and as it ages, you can do the same because it’s increasingly “traditional”.

Agree the age / prior usage of the oak is as important as its origin. For me (excessive) new oak is the bigger red flag in a wine than American (v s French)

[Otto_Forsberg]

When I think of traditional wines from the Rioja, I think of a wine aged for a long time in American oak, a small proportion new.

This. I am always confused when people describe wines showing obvious French oak influence as “traditional” Rioja, because the French oak barriques are a relatively new thing there and virtually all wines were traditionally aged in American oak.

Heredia’s wines are the quintessential examples of traditional Rioja: the wines are aged for exceptionally long times in 100% American oak, but they really don’t show any obvious American oak influence. LRA’s wine are on the more modern side of traditional: the wines are - or at least used to be - aged for a long time in American oak barrels, but a larger percentage of the barrels is new or less seasoned, so the more obvious vanilla influence of American oak shows through.

Re the dill factor, that’s from green American oak. At Ridge Paul was always searching for well seasoned American oak. One Midwestern cooperage was able to provide it for him until the demand for their whisky went though the roof and the owners made the cooperage use ‘Paul’s’ oak for their distilled spirit. Now there are several cooperages with properly seasoned American oak.

+1

Another thing that really confuses me when people smell American oak is how readily they describe it as “dill”. I’ve had some wines which show obvious green, herbal notes of dill and that’s both very distinctive and very different from a typical American oak notes. While I often find lots of American oak influence in Rioja reds, it’s quite rare I pick up any dill notes in them - even when many other who are smelling the same wine are describing the nose to have a “dill” aroma. Most often I’ve picked up dill notes in older California reds that have been aged in American oak. Occasionally in Rioja reds, but that’s rare.

[Mel_Knox]

I suppose one person’ s dill is another’s garrigue is another’s vegetal notes. Somewhere I have an article talking about the chemical component that gives oak its dill character. Maybe I should say ‘Godknowswhere’.

If we remember that parts of the USA were Spanish, we can see how American oak got shipped to Spain for many years and even though the political facts changed, folks kept buying the American oak. Easy to ship!! There is still a big business of selling stave wood --from several countries–to the Spanish to the 50+ cooperages there.