Lipstick on a Pig.

OK, here it is, I don’t like lots of new oak flavors in wine. No, make that I freaking hate it when winemakers use lots of new oak barrels to add huge butterscotch & vanilla flavors to their wines — especially Chardonnay! Why? Because it obscures the actual flavors of the fruit, and the vineyard it‘s from. Plus, it makes the wine a terrible match with most food. Also, those huge added butterscotch, vanilla flavors can be used to hide a lot of ills.

For example, let’s say a winery lets its grapes get so ripe that the resulting wine has no acid, and tastes fat, soft and over the top. Or they don’t really have the best vineyards around, and the wines they produce are nothing special on their own. No problem, just age it in lots of new oak, and it becomes a fat butterball, vanilla bomb that really doesn’t taste like fruit at all. Perfect! Now, let’s sell if for $35 or more!

And the ever-popular, “If we use enough new oak, we can buy grapes from all over the place, and make it all taste exactly the same. That way we can sell tanker trucks of the stuff.” And at premium prices, too!

These hypothetical examples happen all the time. You’ve doubtlessly tasted a few of them. Hell, maybe you even liked, no loved them. Doesn’t make you a bad person, it’s your money. But now you’ll know why I bad-mouth (or bad-blog) wines that I think are horribly over oaked. I never said my tastes would match yours.

So does new oak have a place in good winemaking? Sure, when it’s used as a spice, mixed in with older, neutral barrels. The wine estates of France and Italy have used new oak like this for centuries. And there are plenty of New World wineries that do it right, too. Stony Hill, Chateau Montelena, Mayacamas, Ridge, Ravenswood, Clos du Val, Franciscan, St. Suprey, Grgich Hills, Sanford, Joseph Swan and Porter Creek are a few that spring to mind immediately.

How do you avoid these oak bombs? Well, if you’re in a restaurant with a Sommelier or Wine Steward, ask them if the wine “sees a lot of new oak.” If you’re in a wine store, or Trader Joe’s, look for the words “Buttery,” “Vanilla,” “Nutmeg,” “Hazelnut,” “New Wood,” “Sexy Oak,” “Lavish Oak,” etc, on the shelf tags describing the wine. These are wine-speak, buzz words that are dead giveaways. Words that usually signal little to no new oak are, “Zippy,” “Vibrant,” “Fruit Driven,” “Hints of Oak,” etc. If you trust the staff, ask them.

If you love those big oak bombs, fine. Just don’t pour me any. Cheers!