Guided through the wine tasting process by an expert.
I’ve just been updating itineraries for our walking holidays to la Rioja.
As part of this our guide in the region, Xabi, wrote with a few clarifications. Including this one. Which tickled me as it’s a bit much to put in a holiday description. It is, however, very interesting if you like to know about wines so thanks Xabi.
“French oak is much slower growing than American, and for this reason French oak´s grain is much tighter, as you well say. There is, however, no relationship between this and oak flavour (and when you speak about wine you must say oak aroma, not flavour; there are just five flavours: bitter, acid, salty, sweet and umami).
The grain that you mention is strongly linked with the pore size; because the slow growing French oak pore size is smaller than American one; for this reason the exchanges between the environment and the wine (and between the wood and the wine) are slower in French oak barrels; that gives more elegance to the wine (the fast exchange of American oak wood gives more “aggressivesness” to the wine…).
Small pore size (French oak) gives less aromatic intensity but great complexity.
Medium/Big pore size (American oak) gives great aromatic intensity but less complexity.
Oak aroma basically depends on “Metil Octo Lactona” (chemical molecule that transfer coconut and oak aromas to the wine), and American oak wood has almost double quantity of “M.O.L.” than French oak; for this reason French oak barrels transfer less oak aroma to the wine.
So now you know.
If you would like to join us on a walking holiday to La Rioja, we still have space on our 18th September holiday and on our Rioja wine weekends on the 10th September and the 15th October, 2010.