I suppose you mean La Rioja Alta? “La Rioja” doesn’t mean anything beyond the region itself
While I do love the wines of LRA, I find it hard to believe they don’t use any new oak, seeing how ridiculously oak-driven Ardanza, 904 and 890 can be!
Yes, this is my view too. The 36 month old air dried staves used in the Nadalié Symphony barrels, show much subdued coconut. It never completely goes away, but it seems it really gets tempered after 24 month of drying. Coconut notes is one of the things I dislike with AO.
I would also pontificate on two more things:
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That I think AO integrates with wine quicker than FO does…
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…and that AO doesn’t go through the same awkward phases that FO does in aging - there it’s rather common to taste a barrel after 6 month and panic, because it tastes like you’re sucking on a 2x4 wood beam and you think you’ve ruined the wine. Of course, it integrates eventually and becomes quite elegant, but in my view, AO rarely passes that “panic” phase - it’s always accessible. Maybe it has to do with the less tannic influence it imparts.
Fun note: I just agreed to buy a single re-conditioned Oregon Oak barrel, which is a slightly different species (Quercus Garryana). I’ve heard it behaves a little bit different and is more tannic and perhaps leaning towards the Europen oak styles. Be fun to experiment with. I’ll let you know how that turns out.
I just bought my first 2018 Montebello, so will have to get back to you in a few years!
I make cider at Eola Hills Winery and noticed that they use a small percentage of AO on Pinot. They have a large enough program to make it work but otherwise not common in the Willamette Valley as far as I know.
Evan Martin is using Oregon Oak on some of his Martin Woods Pinots and exclusively on his Chard now if I heard him correctly. New barrels being made from Q. garryana oak on his property, and older barrels purchased from other Oregon wineries per the article below.
https://www.winepressnw.com/magazine/2020/spring-2020/article241546901.html
From our recent visit:
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I don’t believe it either. The AO signature in LRO is very significant, I don’t buy it.
I jumped on their website to see what they say, and for every single vintage, they say it’s aged in 4 year old barrels for 4 years. So every year they just happen to have 4 year old barrels, not 3, not 5. Maybe, but seems a bit unlikely to me. I assumed most wineries like this would weave in the new, so maybe it’s an average of 4. Or, perhaps they really do flip the 5 year old barrels to their lower tier wines and use new for others. I just think Otto is right here, the signature is pungent enough to scream “new”.
Correct
Gran Reserva 904 "Selección Especial" Scroll down some but was at a seminar they did in Minneapolis and they like using older American oak barrels.
Viña Ardanza Ardanza is 4 year old barrels.
I KNOW. I’m very familiar with the LRA tech specifications, seeing how many of their wines I’ve drunk and written about.
I just wrote that I find it hard to believe they don’t use any new oak.
There less expensive wines see the newer oak. Viña Alberdi
I was surprised about this but love all of their wines so other wineries should look at this approach or use less new oak (Napa Comes to my mind).
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I would assume they basically use like a Solera-system, where the new barrels cascade down over time. I don’t know how you could otherwise maintain a consistent 4-year old barrel flow.
Great comments Marshall. I agree on old/neutral oak vs new oak…and that Dauvissat, and most other Chablis producers, use a relatively low percent of new oak (or no new at all, or all SS, in some cases). Some chablis producers have indulged more, the original William Fevre (prior to Henriot/Bouchard taking over) was a ‘shining’ example of high % new oak chablis.
From the comments I’ve seen/heard, enough new oak to balance/soften the hard/austere elements, and new oak to replace older/worn out barrels, reasonably captures the oak regime at Dauvissat. Given the ‘recent’ climate changes, I wonder if there’s less need to balance/soften austere elements, hence using less new oak, these days. But I’ve read Dauvissat tasting notes, from folks I trust, mentioning oak elements (generally faint) in more recent wines…so maybe there’s more to it than softening the austere. I’d love to hear other details/views on this!
Barrel age is open to disagreement. By that, I mean some people will say we use 50% new oak and that means the cuvee is half new and half one use.
Others say no, 50% new is half new and half old.
It seems to me that if the barrels average four years of age then around 12.5% are new and when the barrels are around eight yers old they are used for something else.
But without getting really precise you never know.
Rombauer certainly does based on tasting them.
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We got into oak into AO vs FO in another thread, so thought I’d revive this one.
Not trying to sell you wine (as its sold out of it long time ago) - but as an example if you happen to have it - my first 2019 “Harris” Syrah, only one barrel made, had new AO for about 7-8 months out of the 15 months. So one could say around 50-60% new AO, I suppose. Anyway, it really took to that new barrel and I panicked and moved it to a neutral one. For a few years after release, I felt I’d over-oaked it for my palate. Now 4 years later, it’s really integrated very well and is showing beautifull notes. Could you tell in a blind it was AO? The more experienced of you probably could, but as Ridge likes to do -.even experts get stumped. The lines between AO and FO get very blurred with some age.
Now, as a more recent experiment, I did the Milk Fed 5 Petit Manseng with 100% new AO, just to see what it did. Not my house style at all, but a very interesting experiment to satisfy my curiosity. When I pour that wine at tastings, some people love it and keep coming back for more and more. Maybe they have a taste more leaning towards the bigger Napa Chard styles? Others don’t like it and prefer the leaner whites I normally make. In any case, if you have one after BD, maybe pop one and say how offensive it is to your palate? 
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With 90’s Aussie Shiraz, I always envision walking on a beach in the summer on a hot day. I won’t give you the rest of the visual. Some things are just better kept inside my head, especially these days on a wine board! (probably accounts for a lot of those inflated Parker scores)
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I believe Belle Ponte is also using some Oregon Oak. It is an interesting move as older Oregon Oak is also becoming hard to come by. I believe @Marcus_Goodfellow has mentioned that 97% of the original oak forests in the Willamette Valley have been cut down. There is some “club” of vineyard owners who have committed to preserving the old oak trees on their lands. So while I think the aim of using Oregon Oak is to further express local terroir, it seems like something that doesn’t have a lot of upside.
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Keep in the mind that the original area covered by Oregon Oak included a good portion of western Washington, western Oregon, and northern California. Areas in western Washington and the Willamette Valley that are now covered with Douglas Fir were once oak savannah. The Willamette Valley was routinely burned by the Native Americans to kill back the undergrowth, allow edible plants to grow, and make hunting easier. Mature Oregon Oaks are fire resistant, so the entire Willamette Valley was oak savannah.
It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that Belle Pente used Oregon Oak barrels, given that Evan Martin of Martin Woods (and HiFi Wine Bar) was the long-time assistant winemaker there.
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Do you have any idea where the Oregon Oak for barrels is being sourced from? And is that source sufficient to see any substantial increase in the use of said oak? If CA is way behind France in managing oak forests, is OR likewise way behind CA?
I have 2 sets of Oregon oak but the barrels are exclusively for the whiskey. One is from a property in Creswell and the other is off of a vineyard in Yamhill-Carlton. I don’t think there’s any sort of organized forest situation for Oregon oak, as mentioned above.
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