Oaked and Unoaked wines

[stevebody]

Without meaning to in any way influence your tastes about oaked or unoaked wines, let me just observe that a lot of people feel that oak-barrel fermentation and ageing is something that is negatively altering the flavor of wines in general. I'm right in the middle: if it enhances the wine, great, but a lot of times, it's as gratuitous as carrying a pager with your cel phone.

America has taken a bad rap the past decade or so - and probably a little bit deservedly - for popularizing the practice of oaking almost everything. Even some of the German varietals WoW mentioned are oaked by American producers. We weren't the first country to use oak, of course, but we've kinda run it into the ground. As a general rule, if it's from California and it's red, it's oaked. Ditto for almost all the whites, even things like Viognier, which REALLY don't need it. I've tasted almost 300 whites from all over the globe in the last three months and maybe 25% of them were NOT oaked.

For pusposes of talking to your customers, you can and probably should assume that an American red will be showing some oak. Here in Washington, where oak is a little less prevalent than in CA, the vast majority of our reds get oak and far too many of the whites as well. Follow WoW's guidelines for the French stuff but beware: a lot of the French wineries that make wines primarily for export to the US are now oaking whites because they know we like it.

I heartily second the suggestion to get the vintners' notes on your wines. The distributors have them but are sometimes lazy about providing them. If you insist - gently - they'll eventually cough them up. And DO insist. The key to selling wine successfully is knowing your wines and being able to answer questions and GIVE OPINIONS. People want to have their wine choices validated by a knowledgeable person. Wine, especially in restaurants, ain't cheap, and folks want to know that they're getting a bottle that is a good use of their $$$.

It takes a long time to amass wine knowledge but the journey can be very pleasurable and enlightening if you stick with it.