TO OAK OR NOT TO OAK ...

For our October 2024 wine club, “How Wine is Affected by Aging,” we explored what happens to wine as it matures: oxygen exposure, tannin evolution, vessel choice, and the chemical shifts that reshape color, texture, and aroma. If you’d like to revisit that discussion, you can find it here: https://amarobrooklyn.com/pages/how-is-wine-affected-by-aging

For this month’s wine club, we are isolating one variable from that discussion: to age with oak or not to age with oak. But first let’s establish one thing about oak: it is not one thing. A brand-new barrel behaves very differently from a neutral one. A 225-liter barrique behaves differently from a 600-liter cask. And sometimes, the most deliberate choice a winemaker can make is to avoid oak altogether.

Long before oak became a stylistic choice for aging wine, it was a tool. The ancient Greeks fermented and aged wine in clay amphorae, and for storing or transporting it, they sealed these vessels with pine resin. The Romans inherited this tradition, but it was their military machine that transformed European wine culture, and as legions pushed north and west, they encountered Celtic tribes in Gaul who made wooden barrels for storage. The Romans adopted this technology as wood barrels were lighter, tougher, stackable, and far less prone to shattering than clay, all of which were ideal for long military campaigns and mass transport. Oak was the most abundant and workable form of wood, and coopering it into barrels proved a logistical breakthrough for the Roman Empire’s wine industry.

Ancient engraving of Roman soldiers loading wine barrels onto a boat. Source: VinePair

Source: https://www.kj.com/blog-how-oak-barrels-affect-chardonnay.htmlSource: https://www.kj.com/blog-how-oak-barrels-affect-chardonnay.html

Wine was not a luxury for Roman soldiers; it was daily rations, morale, trade currency, and medicine. Supplying armies meant moving wine at scale, and barrels made that possible, powering both military logistics and commerce across the empire from Hispania to the Rhine. Wood barrels also proved far less intrusive than pine resin in terms of affecting the flavor of the stored wine; hence, any impact oak had on taste was incidental at first, not intentional.

But over time, winemakers did indeed notice that wine stored in oak evolved differently; it was softer, rounder, and subtly spiced. And once that door was opened, winemakers increasingly paid attention to the type of oak they used, how the barrels were made with it, and how long wine stayed in contact with it. Forest origin mattered. Grain tightness mattered. Seasoning staves outdoors mattered. Toast levels mattered. All oak barrels share one important trait: they breathe. Oxygen moves slowly through the wood, a process known as micro-oxygenation. This gradual exposure softens tannins, stabilizes color, and builds texture. From here on, the difference between new, neutral, and no oak isn’t whether oxygen plays a role — it’s how much, and what else comes along with it. What started as a military supply solution became one of the most powerful stylistic levers in winemaking. Today, oak is not a single choice but a spectrum of decisions, from assertive to hands-off.

Ironically, it was later technology that made oak optional again. The same advances in materials and transport that once elevated barrels eventually made alternatives viable. Stainless steel allowed winemakers to ferment and store wine in inert, temperature-controlled environments. Concrete offered another neutral vessel, permitting gentle oxygen exchange without imparting flavor. And glass bottles, combined with modern shipping, meant wine no longer had to age in the same container it traveled in.

For the first time in history, wine could be made, stored, and transported without wood at all. What began as a logistical necessity had become a stylistic choice — which brings us to the spectrum we’re exploring this month with our three wines: new oak, neutral oak, and no oak.

NEW OAK

When winemakers talk about new oak, they mean barrels that have never held wine before. These barrels are chemically active. They still contain their full load of extractable compounds from the oak, which dissolve into the wine during aging and give us familiar notes like vanilla, baking spice, toast, smoke, and sometimes coconut. But flavor is only part of the story.

In new barrels, the oxygen exchange works in tandem with extraction. As air enters, tannins soften and color stabilizes, while fresh wood compounds dissolve into the wine at the same time. Structure and flavor develop together. Barrel size matters as well: most new-oak aging happens in small formats (225 to 300 liters), where higher surface contact accelerates both oxygen exposure and flavor uptake. A few months in a small new barrel can leave more imprint than much longer in a large cask. In short, new oak isn’t storage. It’s shaping. The wood becomes part of the wine’s architecture.

Featured February Amaro Wine Club New Oak wine: Rippa Dorii Ribera del Duero Tempranillo Roble (2022)
VARIETALS: Tempranillo

Rippa Dorii is the Ribera del Duero project of the Ontañón Family, launched in the 2010s to focus on old-vine Tempranillo around Fuentecén in Burgos. The estate draws on experience gained in long-held vineyards and a family history rooted in Rioja, but with winemaking adapted to Ribera’s harsher continental landscape. The word roble on a Spanish label signals oak influence, usually short-term aging in new barrels rather than long cellaring that is more common in the Rioja region/appellation.

After fermentation, this wine was aged in new French and American oak barriques (225 liters) for approximately 3 to 4 months. This short but active contact allowed the wine to absorb spice, toast, and subtle smoke without overwhelming the fruit. Tempranillo’s naturally thick skins and firm tannic structure make it especially well suited to this treatment, giving the wine polish and early approachability while retaining backbone.

FOOD PAIRINGS: grilled lamb chops, roast pork, chorizo, mushroom risotto, hard sheep’s milk cheeses, barbecued meats

Old bush-trained vines beneath a limestone plateau village in Burgos Ribera del Duero, where elevation and exposure shape the region’s wines

NEUTRAL OAK

Neutral oak barrels are barrels that have already been employed for other wines. After several fills, most of the flavor compounds of the oak fade. The toast character is spent. The barrels still breathe, but extraction is finished. Oxygen works on its own now, encouraging tannins to polymerize and textures to soften, without adding vanilla or smoke. Here, the barrel is no longer expressive. It’s structural. In this sense, neutral oak serves more as a vessel and less as a source of flavor. Producers often favor larger-format neutral barrels — from 500 to 1,000-liter foudres — that further reduce wood impact while still allowing gentle oxygen exchange. In short, neutral oak is often a tool for winemakers to shape the texture and body of the wine with oxygen while allowing it remain fruit-forward.

Monica and Beno Stewart

Featured February Amaro Wine Club Neutral Oak wine: Catch & Release Wines Gamay Noir “Supernova” Sonoma Coast (2023)
VARIETALS: Gamay

Catch & Release was started in 2019 by husband and wife team Beno and Monica Stewart as a project to partner with likeminded farmers. The couple stresses that they are not farmers themselves, but they are intent on sourcing their grapes from farmers who feel like they do about letting the grapes express themselves organically. The vineyards where they source their grapes are at minimum organically farmed and often biodynamically farmed. Their sourcing ranges from Mendocino to the Santa Cruz Mountains, and everything is fermented with native yeast and no additives and in neutral vessels. The Gamay grapes for this wine were sourced from cool-climate vineyards on the Sonoma Coast, and the wine was aged in large neutral French oak barrels (mostly 500-liter puncheons) for approximately 8 months counting on micro-oxygenation to round the texture while preserving fruitiness.

FOOD PAIRINGS: roast chicken, duck confit, lentil stews, grilled sausages, charcuterie, mushroom dishes

NO OAK

As we mentioned earlier, removing wood from the equation entirely has become a very purposeful winemaking technique. Without oak, there is no barrel-driven tannin softening and no wood-derived flavor. Stainless steel does not allow slow oxygen exchange while concrete and amphora allow it without adding any wood seasoning flavor. These vessels keep wine linear, transparent, and unmasked, a natural fit for grapes that are high in acidity, aromatically delicate, or structurally complete without added tannin. Elsewhere, the absence of oak reflects an intentional stylistic choice, one that allows winemakers to foreground different facets of a varietal or blend than those traditionally associated with appellations where oak is the rule.

Featured February Amaro Wine Club No Oak wine: Domaine de Montgilet Grolleau (2022)
VARIETALS: Grolleau

Domaine de Montgilet spans two centuries and six generations out of Anjou where Grolleau has long been valued for its bright acidity and light-bodied structure. The estate at this point is a collaboration of extended family that is dedicated to working with local varietals, but especially with preserving and championing Grolleau as a single-varietal wine rather than a blending grape.

For this wine, the grapes are fermented in stainless steel and aged exclusively in steel tanks, with the goal to capture the grape’s natural crunchy red fruit character and tension.

FOOD PAIRINGS: grilled trout, pork rillettes, tomato-based dishes, soft cheeses, vegetable tarts, roast chicken

Cousins “at work” in the vineyards.Cousins “at work” in the vineyards.