What's the deal with extended barrel aging?

WINE TALK
1

I had this wine last night, an “extended barrel aged” merlot. Monolithic fruit and did not taste like merlot. Did I drink it too young? Was this the extra barrel aging? Are O’Shaughnessy wines just extracted fruit bombs?
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  • 2009 O’Shaughnessy Merlot Extended Barrel Aged Howell Mountain - USA, California, Napa Valley, Howell Mountain (4/11/2015)
    This wine is potent. Sweet on the nose and heavy in the mouth, this wine was syrupy and tasted very extracted. I didn’t recognize it as merlot - it tasted more like a Caymus cab or Paso Robles Syrah. Wine was well made, but one dimensional and not my style. GOOD.

PostScript - I never know with these wines if I’m drinking them too young and if the fruit will eventually fade and the wine become more interesting? As a 6 year old wine, suppose that would already have started to evidence itself, if that were the case. Maybe hold 10 more years and check in, but who knows…

Posted from CellarTracker

2

Longer barrel aging, perhaps like with cheese aging, trades freshness and immediate appeal for more complex and varied flavors. Texture changes, particularly the tannin. However, the trade of freshness for complexity sometimes goes poorly. Some wines don’t have the substance to stand up well to extended aging. It’s no different really from how we judge which bottles to consume young and which can and should be held for the future.

I can’t speak to this wine, but you’re describing a wine that was very ripe at harvest and made in an extracted style. Here is the winery’s own description of the wine, which they also say was in barrel for 32 months. They note that cab lovers like the tannin in this wine. I’ve bold all the descriptors that really stand out to me.

“Our 2009 Howell Mountain Extended Barrel Aged Merlot is the first commercial introduction of what we expect will be a semi-regular series of extended aged wines. Extended aging in barrel is a premise Sean has been researching and experimenting with on a small scale for several years and we are excited to share the fruits of his labor. These wines will be very limited in their release and are only offered to our Friends members. Our much touted estate Merlot has been pushed to a whole new level with exotic secondary and tertiary aromatics luring you into a glass of deep and dark mountain Merlot. Purple-black color with an almost opaque core leads into intense wild plum preserve, sweet aged balsamic, black tea and rum raisin aromas. On the palate the wine has sweet, ripe and rich flavors of black cherry, sweet oak, espresso, braised game and anisette candy. Our Merlots have always had the trademark Howell Mountain tannins that make Cabernet lovers swoon. This particular wine brings with it some additional well-toned muscle and a silky smooth and long finish.”

3

Vincent, thanks for the thoughtful response. Suppose I should have read the winery note before opening. Not sure that it was as complex as the notes would have you believe, but it was sweet and full of fruit. Also, I didn’t notice a lot of tannin. A perfectly fine wine, but not my preference in styles. I’m just wondering if I opened this way too early or would it have been much better in 5-10 years. My only bottle, so guess I’ll never know.

4

There could be some oxidation from the additional time in barrel that’s blurring some of the nuance the fruit may have had. Ideally I think you’d want a lot of fruit tannin and good levels of acidity for extended barrel aging.

5

That’s one of those descriptions that makes me run the other direction.

One person’s complexity is another person’s monolithicness.

6

Yep.

And whether the barrel aging is extended or not, the result also depends a LOT on the barrels. If you put the wine into old barrels for five or six or ten years, like some people in Spain do, you’re not doing it to pick up oak flavorings. You’re doing it for the mechanical properties of the wood. If you put it into new barrels for a year and then take it out and put it into another set of new barrels for another year or two, that’s an entirely different situation and you’re pretty likely to get a lot of oak influence.

Then finally if you’re using barrique sizes or large casks you’re going to have different results. I’m not sure why they put that wine into wood for so long. It’s Howell mountain fruit, so that is promising, but the style is usually pretty ripe and it doesn’t need a whole lot of vanilla/brown sugar from lots of wood. I haven’t tasted that wine, so can’t really say much, but my guess is that it would be Caymus-like.

7

And if it’s fairly high in alcohol, it will pick up more oak flavors.