The Auswine Forum

Guess this could be a silly question but why French/American Oak and not Tasmanian? Is it because the forests are semi protected? The cost? Bad flavour?

Just curiosity

In a word "flavour" and possibly in a second word "texture". In the same way you have asked about Taswegian Oak, you could have asked about Jarra, Pine, Western Red Cedar or any other type of wood.

The wood, no matter what type, has to deliver complementary flavours and the right textural tannins to the wine and history has shown that the species that make up the French and American oak genre do it best. Hungarian and Russian are closely related to French, essentially the same.

TORB wrote:In a word "flavour" and possibly in a second word "texture". In the same way you have asked about Taswegian Oak, you could have asked about Jarra, Pine, Western Red Cedar or any other type of wood.

The wood, no matter what type, has to deliver complementary flavours and the right textural tannins to the wine and history has shown that the species that make up the French and American oak genre do it best. Hungarian and Russian are closely related to French, essentially the same.

Clos Mogador is now experimenting with Eastern Europe Oak...we saw 2 barrels at the winery.

In addition to American, French and Eastern European oak, I've tried Portuguese and Oregon (US) oaks. The French and Eastern European are pretty indistinguishable (they are the same species, I believe). The Oregon and Portuguese oaks are distinctive and not--to my palate--in a positive way.

Of course, people have used lots of other woods for cooperage through the ages, some of which you can still find being used. Masi's Serego Alighieri wines use cherry. Marega's Holbar uses acacia. Chestnut is still used by some other Italian producers. In California's early days, the wood for large vats was redwood (not sure if any are still being used, though).

Tasmanian Oak is a marketing name for 3 species of Eucalypt and as such is completely different to the oak used for winemaking.

Wine matured in eucalypt would probably taste like a blend of retsina and Vicks.

Kieran

..... which would be an improvement on Retsina.

Sorry guys
Oak is fairly unique in that most timbers will leak in any or all of the 3 dimensions.
Aussie oak is eucalypt and will leak in all 3 ways.
And taste like crap.

Cheers
Smithy