What quality red wines see zero oak?

[Ian_Sutton]

@John Morris

I’ll delete my post. Let’s try to forget I said anything that stupid.

Yes of course, it will be completely forgotten. We’ll never talk of it again

[Rory_K]

Given the tendency in the Rhone to age Grenache in concrete not barrel, I would venture that any pure Grenache CdP would be a candidate. But to your point about “quality” the wines I’ve had that see no oak at all tend to be more inexpensive, everyday reds that see maybe a year in steel tank at most before bottling. They’re great wines, but not high-end.

[W_Leonard]

@Kris Patten

Easy answer is Cru Beaujolais…Peter, pretty sure they all see oak in WA…also wines like Elio Grasso Nebbiolo, all stainless and Barolo level fruit. Plenty of Rhone wines with no oak from CdR to Gigondas to CdP.

Which Cru Beaujolais? Most age their wines in barrel to my knowledge?

[Kris_Patten]

@W. Leonard

@Kris Patten

Easy answer is Cru Beaujolais…Peter, pretty sure they all see oak in WA…also wines like Elio Grasso Nebbiolo, all stainless and Barolo level fruit. Plenty of Rhone wines with no oak from CdR to Gigondas to CdP.

Which Cru Beaujolais? Most age their wines in barrel to my knowledge?

By the letter of the law, yes, but I’d submit they rest them in barrel and sees zero oak in the title I took to mean impart oak flavors…5 to 13 year old barrels don’t impart flavor, they just stack easier for storage.

Yes, they see oak, but oak flavors aren’t transferred to wine in most.

[John_Morris]

@Kris Patten

By the letter of the law, yes, but I’d submit they rest them in barrel and sees zero oak in the title I took to mean impart oak flavors…5 to 13 year old barrels don’t impart flavor, they just stack easier for storage.

Yes, they see oak, but oak flavors aren’t transferred to wine in most.

Did you read Chris’s OP? He said:

By no oak, I mean no oak, including old barrels no matter how old, large casks, Slavonian oak, oak staves, oak cubes, sawdust or anything.

[R_Roberts]

I don’t have a ton of experience with zero oak wines, but so far I’m not a fan. They have a crystalline like purity, but lack roundness. So they tend to be educational by the glass, but tedious beyond that. YMMV.

[Kris_Patten]

@John Morris

@Kris Patten

By the letter of the law, yes, but I’d submit they rest them in barrel and sees zero oak in the title I took to mean impart oak flavors…5 to 13 year old barrels don’t impart flavor, they just stack easier for storage.

Yes, they see oak, but oak flavors aren’t transferred to wine in most.

Did you read Chris’s OP? He said:

By no oak, I mean no oak, including old barrels no matter how old, large casks, Slavonian oak, oak staves, oak cubes, sawdust or anything.

Not really, I usually read last post then up.

Again, there are Cru and Beaujolais that don’t see oak, but board favorites do, Thivin, Lapierre, etc…I can’t think of any red wine in general that sees exclusively steel or cement other than Nouveau, maybe, sure there is one that sees oak too.

Perhaps we should be listing producers/cuvees vs kinds of quality red wines

[BrentM]

Overnoy’s Ploussard is fermented and aged in stainless these days. Plenty of other Jura reds done entirely in stainless.

Cornelissen doesn’t use any oak at all.

I realize these aren’t board favorites, but there are many “natural” producers that avoid oak entirely.

[R_Roberts]

@Kim Z

I think its a myth that elevage (pre-bottle aging) without micro-oxidation leads to “reduction”. Actually the term reduction is incorrect, because the off-odors are actually oxidized derivatives of hydrogen sulfide (mercaptans, disulfides, etc).

These compounds form in the presence of oxygen. One of the conventional treatments for hydrogen sulfide is splash racking, but it is risky. Agitating the must can help volatile H2S evaporate but it can also become oxidized and create off odors.

Neutral barrels won’t impart oak flavors but still micro-oxygenate the wine.

I made a syrah in 2006 that was aged in glass. I don’t know how you could make a wine that sees less oxygen. H2S reared its ugly head, and a vigorous racking corrected it.

Data point of one, but my experience aligns with the consensus.

[Otto_Forsberg]

@Rama Roberts

I don’t have a ton of experience with zero oak wines, but so far I’m not a fan. They have a crystalline like purity, but lack roundness. So they tend to be educational by the glass, but tedious beyond that. YMMV.

I think you confuse stainless steel-aged wines with all the wines that see zero oak.

Aging in amphorae or unlined concrete often gives you the same kind of roundness as aging in oak does. Completely reductive winemaking makes the wine much more forward, but also feeling like they lack that special level of complexity underneath.

[R_Roberts]

@Otto Forsberg

@Rama Roberts

I don’t have a ton of experience with zero oak wines, but so far I’m not a fan. They have a crystalline like purity, but lack roundness. So they tend to be educational by the glass, but tedious beyond that. YMMV.

I think you confuse stainless steel-aged wines with all the wines that see zero oak.

Aging in amphorae or unlined concrete often gives you the same kind of roundness as aging in oak does. Completely reductive winemaking makes the wine much more forward, but also feeling like they lack that special level of complexity underneath.

Perhaps. I know amphorae and unlined concrete have oxygen permeability, but as I mentioned I don’t have the experience to say they would offer the same roundness as a wine aged in a neutral oak vessel, maybe in part because oak isn’t really ever neutral.

All I can say is I steer away from zero oak wines because I (sweeping generality) find them to be gimmicky or a cost savings measure, not because they produce a superior product. I’d be happy to be proven wrong.

[Mel_Knox]

Another way to answer this question is to ask other questions:
1/who buys new oak?
2/who buys the used oak from the people who buy new oak??

To answer the first question, it is people who make pinot noir, chardonnay and the Bordeaux red varieties. They probably account for over 80% of new oak purchases. If you toss in people making syrah, top Spanish wines, super Tuscans etc there is another 5 or 10%.

In France people with used barrels to sell usually target the Champenois, minor properties in Bordeaux, the folks in Alsace, Chablis, the Rhone and the Loire. Beaujolais tends towards larger containers, be it oak, chestnut or steel. I don t think anybody is getting rich selling new barrels in Macon/Beaujolais.

So, then we have to ask ourselves, are we talking about great wine or quality wine?? There are certainly tons of quality wines made in the southern Rhone, Languedoc and Provence in neutral tanks. Oliver has already discussed Italian reds so I won t go there. There are many many reds made in larger wood tanks that for all intents are neutral.

[Otto_Forsberg]

@Rama Roberts

Perhaps. I know amphorae and unlined concrete have oxygen permeability, but as I mentioned I don’t have the experience to say they would offer the same roundness as a wine aged in a neutral oak vessel, maybe in part because oak isn’t really ever neutral.

All I can say is I steer away from zero oak wines because I (sweeping generality) find them to be gimmicky or a cost savings measure, not because they produce a superior product. I’d be happy to be proven wrong.

Come again? Oak isn’t really ever neutral? Isnt’t it quite generally agreed upon that after 4th or 5th use (or less or more, depending on how long one wine stays in the barrel) even a barrique - a vessel normally considered to be one of the most effective means to introduce oak flavor to the wine - is neutral up to the point you really can’t taste any wood aromatics even if you aged your most neutral wine in there?

Larger vessels are much less effective imparting oak flavors to the wine and wineries normally use them for decades; I’ve had many wines that are from large casks over 100 years old, the oldest one being from the 15th century. Wines can be aged in these oak vessels for decades and, I can assure you, they don’t get any oak flavors at all. These are truly neutral oak vessels. Still these wines get the roundness and complexity the oxidative environment an oak cask offers.

And considering zero oak wines as gimmicky or a cost savings measure really sounds like a sweeping generalitions. If you said you have limited experience with zero-oak wines, perhaps you should try them out some more (some great suggestions in this very thread) instead of making over-simplifications.

[Mattstolz]

@GregT

Interesting Kim.

I have never done a ton of research into the Joven wines, and haven’t tasted a ton of them, but I think that was always my assumption that they saw little to no oak use. Thanks for the info!

Matt - I’m sure you know that the term generally means “young” but there are a lot of people who don’t like the traditional rules for crianza, reserva, etc. So they use all kinds of labels that aren’t standard.

In most of Spain, a crianza only needs to spend six months in oak but in Rioja, Ribera del Duero and Navarra, it needs to spend a year in oak. So if you’re taking your least impressive grapes that aren’t fit for your reserva, and you’re sticking them in oak for a year, that seems extreme to some people who see that producers in other areas aren’t as constrained.

It’s actually quite logical but adds yet another layer of confusion for customers. The nice thing about the US is that people don’t walk in with expectations so guys like Larry can do whatever strikes them as appropriate and they don’t have to worry about the local authorities getting upset!

Thanks again!
seems like from that explanation i was on the right line of thought at least. I was thinking obviously for reservas and gran reservas, those are grapes that are worth investing the time into, a crianza maybe worth investing some time but not nearly as much, and extended it to think that must mean wines that get labeled “joven” you are just trying to get out the door cuz they’re the grapes not worth spending any extra time on. but you’re right, from the labelling, young can be translated pretty loosely, and of course not all winemakers like rules! haha

[larry_schaffer]

What I love about this conversation is the dispelling of ‘conventional wisdoms’ that many seem to have about winemaking in certain regions. What you think my take place but not actually be taking place.

Thanks to all who have a lot more experience with these different regions than I do. I’ve learned quite a bit here.

Cheers.

[H_Wallace_Jr]

For Mourvèdre-
In Bandol (but unable to be labeled Bandol)
-Domaine de la Tour du Bon “En Sol”
-Chateau Canadel “Cana Tera”
Both wines are fermented and aged in Amphora. (Note: En Sol is now one of the most expensive wines coming from the region at about $90)

-Our 2016 Especial Mourvèdre (100% concrete)

I think the Edmunds St. John Rocks and Gravel was 100% concrete (fermented and aged) for a time.

There are probably tons of wines to pull from if you go down the Amphora rabbit hole.

[GregT]

So question about that. If you put the wine in concrete, the concrete can be glass lined or unlined? If the former, there’s no oxygen unless it’s bubbled in right? And if the latter, you do get some oxygen?

I don’t know the answer for sure and I think the glass lined containers are easier to clean, but before they had stainless steel refrigeration, in some of the poorer regions in Europe, they’d build these big concrete tanks (not egg-shaped) and I was told that was to offer some ability to cool the fermenting must and then to store the finished wine until it was bottled.

Mel’s point about “quality” wine is appropriate here - none of those wines were planned to be kept away for years, but they were not necessarily considered plonk.

[Otto_Forsberg]

@GregT

So question about that. If you put the wine in concrete, the concrete can be glass lined or unlined? If the former, there’s no oxygen unless it’s bubbled in right? And if the latter, you do get some oxygen?

Basically this, yeah. A glass-lined (or coated with anything else, for that matter) concrete or clay vessel is no different from a stainless steel tank - they are both inert and thus age the wine reductively, not oxidatively.

The only difference to this is beeswax, which is used for example in kvevri-making in Georgia. There the beeswax makes the porous clay less permeable to oxygen, but not completely inert. A poorly made, untreated kvevri or amphora can be so porous that instead of letting oxygen in, it slowly lets the wine out.

[H_Wallace_Jr]

Most concrete tanks I’ve seen (US and France) have been unlined.

Though far from zero percent- Pontet Canet ages a large portion 30%+ of their production in concrete amphora (most of which was fermented in steel or concrete prior).

[larry_schaffer]

Question about amphora - are they lined or not? And how porous is clay versus concrete?

Cheers.