Trends: Grain vs. Forest

When it comes to barrels, many cooperages are talking more about grain tightness these days and less about the forests.

One cooper in Congac, France was recently quoted as saying that this change in direction is a "revolution."

"It is the direction things are going in--just talking about grains rather than forest selection," noted one barrel salesman in California who has worked for three French cooperages. "There's a trend getting away from forests and more toward stylist blends--that's what we see here."

"Many years ago we noticed that in any forest you can have two oak trees 50 yards apart, and the structure of both trees will be completely different," the head of a leading French cooperage said. "We found out with analysis that grain was the key criteria to differentiate one tree from another. Now everybody has to talk about grain tightness."

"Just because it says Tronçais doesn't mean it's the best-- it might not be--but it's Tronçais," noted Jeff Cohn, winemaker for J.C. Cellars of Oakland, California. "I would rather have a cooperage say 'this is our house style' and focus on the grain size. Then there's more consistency.

"I usually ask for tight grain," Cohn continued. "But there are times I ask for certain barrels to be a looser grain because I don't rack my wines."

For years, people were buying forest designation wood--the same species but from different forests, the assumption being that the terroir of the different areas would proffer unique flavors. To be sure, some forests are associated with tight grain. Grain tightness does differ by forest, though it can be quite variable within a forest.

Some of the most well known forests in France are a stone's throw from one another, though. "To assume the whole forest is intrinsically different is patently stupid," quipped a barrel vendor based in California. "There's a big demand for Allier, but there's not enough Allier wood to meet demand if you catch my drift. One of my jobs here is to keep my suppliers honest. The French government is cracking down (see sidebar below).

"Some very large cooperages have been investigated by the French government within the last two months," one barrel supplier claimed. "Our standard barrel is a 'center-of-France' barrel. Instead of this silliness of Allier versus Nevers, you want tight and medium and loose (grain). Just look at the end of the barrel and you'll know."

The U.S. manager of yet another cooperage, however, said his company continues to sell forest-designated barrels as inspections have shown his cooperage "unquestionably" has wood supplies and documentation for making such designations. He said some other coopers don't sell forest designates because they don't have the supply.

"We have been talking about grain forever. On the French oak side, we never offered a forest-designated product," the international sales manager for still another cooperage said. He said many cooperages make every effort to respect forest origin but noted that some cooperages may have cut corners in the past.

Grain size is defined by the average size and regularity of annual growth rings and is measured in rings per inch. One can look at the end of the stave of a barrel and count. "It's simple but amazing how few winemakers know this or know where to look," another vendor said. "Look at your barrels. It's patently obvious whether they're tight or not."

One leading French oak supplier, who also said his company stopped using French forest designations on barrels many years ago, put it as follows: "2.5 millimeters between rings is tight grain."

Another talked in rings per inch, saying less than 10 is fairly loose grain, that 11 to 14 is considered medium grain and that above that is "tight."

Another said its guidelines for French oak grain tightness are: more than 17 grains per inch (gpi) equals extra fine grain; 12 to 16 gpi equals fine grain; 8 to 11 gpi equals medium grain; and less than 8 gpi equals coarse grain.

Tightness is determined by how fast a tree grows during the summer. The slower the tree grows, the tighter the grain.

The terms "tight-grained" versus "loose-grained" may not be universally defined, but the received wisdom is that tighter grained oak releases extractives, primarily tannins and lactones, but also furfurals and wood-derived alcohols (ex. guaiacol and syringol) into the wine more slowly than looser grained oak. The slower extraction rate is supposed to lead to better integration of the oak into the wine. Since better integration is almost always preferred, one can assume that tighter-grained oak would always be better and looser-grained oak would always be inferior for aging wine.

Using this logic, the only time one might want a looser grain is if one wanted to extract the oak extractives into the wine as quickly as possible. In the end this is likely to prove counterproductive since, if one accepts the premise, then the "harsher" tannins would have to be ameliorated at some point prior to bottling.

In reality most of the extraction that is going to occur occurs very quickly on the order of days or weeks rather than months. Extraction rates may have little if nothing to do with the final integration of the oak extractives into the wine. If the only reason one put wine in barrels was to extract oak flavors into it, then there are certainly more efficient ways to get oak "flavors" into the wine. The importance of the grain may have less to do with the extractive than with the rate of evaporation through the oak grain.

One winemaker we consulted said he's found that many varietals like Gamay Noir, Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier, Carignane and Mourvedre seem to age better in tightest-grained barrels while others such as Zinfandel, Valdigue, Charbono, Tempranillo, Grenache and red hybrids "seem to age better" with looser-grained barrels.

What research has been done appears to indicate that the differences between the wood from the individual French forests are less important than where the oak was aged and who made the barrel.

"The differences in grain size are real but are completely overrun by toast levels and house style," one winemaker said. "Most winemakers agree that house style and toast levels trump grain."

"Grain is new again," another barrel supplier said. "Grain is more important than the designation. There are differences associated with the soils but, the fact is, this is not as pronounced for trees as for grapes." wbm

French Oak Forests to be Divided into Geographic Brand Names

Until now, the regions producing French oak were not officially defined. In addition, clarity has been lacking which concerns the geographic names traditionally associated with a fine quality of grain. As a result, last March the French Cooperage Federation decided to divide France up into four major zones of production, broken down into administrative areas and further broken down into forests. The decision was made so the industry could start using the same denominations and to clamp down on fraud.

"Sometimes the wood from certain areas is considered to always be of a high standard quality and marketed as such when this is not necessarily the case," explained Michel Ovard, president of the French Cooperage Federation. The creation of the four new regions--Centre, Nord, Est and Limousin--will be validated by the members of the Federation at their upcoming General Assembly scheduled for June.

Representatives of French cooperages with operations in California said the initiative is welcome news for the cooperage industry because it will help insure that the wood used to assemble barrels is in fact sourced from the forests they are purported to come from.