A Brief History of Oak Barrels

A number of times throughout this class, I noticed how often wooden barrels were mentioned as an important element to wine production. Sometimes this was a positive element that complemented the wine we were tasting and other times it was negative, either because the wine were tasting had too much oak in it or simply because the cost of oak barrels themselves made some wine operations prohibitively expensive. This got me very interested in the practice of oak barrels, when they first began to be used, and what they contribute.

Historically, wine was typically aged in clay vases rather than wood barrels. The exception here was Mesopotamia where palm wood barrels were used rather than the Egyptian and Roman practice of clay. [1] This practice was continued until the Romans conquered the people of Gaul (modern day France), who had been using oak barrels to transport beer. In contrast to palm wood, oak was widely available in Europe, waterproof because of it's tight grain, and malleable enough to require less effort to be made into a barrel.

Today, oak is widely broken into French oak (the same type as used originally by the people of Gaul) and American oak, which have respective advantages. Broadly the difference breaks down as follows:

Generally speaking, American oak is ideal for bolder, more structured wines (Cabernet Sauvignon, Petite Sirah) that can handle American oak’s robust flavors and oxygen ingress, whereas European oak is ideal for lighter wines (such as Pinot Noir or Chardonnay) that require more subtlety. [2]

In an industry as complex and storied as wine, it's gratifying to realize both the practical and aesthetic advantages of using oak. Oak was a demonstrably better medium to transport wine than clay and had the added effect of imbuing subtleties into the wine that had not previously been there. When American oak was introduced, the wine industry changed again and incorporated that wood into the production of wines that could benefit from a bolder effect. Ultimately, while it can be tempting to attribute the way old industries operate to inertia or tradition, even a quick study into why oak is used in wine show another story.

Sources:
[1] https://vinepair.com/wine-101/wine-aged-oak-history-lesson/
[2] https://winefolly.com/tips/how-wine-barrels-affect-the-taste-of-wine/