http://catavino.disqus.com/Spanish Wine, Portuguese Wine, their foods, and culturesenWed, 10 Sep 2008 22:44:30 -0000http://www.catavino.net/blog/wine-racks-judging-blogs-and-an-anti-oak-rant/#comment-2420696I'm impressed with the story about the wood for your wine rack. Working at Tin Cross this Summer, when we weren't in the fields we were involved in the reconstruction of the ranch house deck. It was a grueling process of measurements, cutting, removing old planks and nails, and driving in new 4" nails (which by the way if you don't hit it right on the head the first time, the nail is useless). Just a tad more involved than the wine rack, glad it has been an easy going project.DylanWed, 10 Sep 2008 22:44:30 -0000http://www.catavino.net/blog/wine-racks-judging-blogs-and-an-anti-oak-rant/#comment-2420695Remy, Isn't the diversity and complexity of wine part of the reason why adore this stuff? While we are all prone to making sweeping generalizations, such as oak is bad and lower alcohol is good, there are too many exceptions to the "rule". This is the number 1 reason why we emphasis on this site, over and over again, to keep your mind open to regions, styles, grapes, etc that you may not know or previously enjoy. There are some fantastic wines made in new oak and some incredible higher alcohol wines, along with some horrific ones, but why not continue pushing our comfort zones to seek out that which challenges our preconceived notions :-)Gabriella OpazTue, 09 Sep 2008 12:38:25 -0000http://www.catavino.net/blog/wine-racks-judging-blogs-and-an-anti-oak-rant/#comment-2420694Oak is a puzzling thing, sometimes, isn't it? Your post is very useful in reminding us that 100% new oak is not necessarily public enemy no. 1. The level of ripeness of the grapes, the concentration, acidity levels of the wine and the grape variety all count. And I wouldn't even want to get into the possible influence of the choices made at the fermentation stage. Oh, and how about the size of the barrels and the type of oak; a winemaker I know, here in Quebec, had a nasty surprise when she had to change an older French barrel for a new American barrel, and wound up, even after cutting the time the wine spent in barrel by half, with one very spicy, woody white. I remember tasting whites in the cellar at Matassa, in Roussillon, and being bowled over by the freshness and varietal character of a barrel of grenache gris: that barrel was new, yet the oak character was less apparent than in an older barrel of muscat à petits grains. There are no simple answers in the world of wine. Thank God.RemyTue, 09 Sep 2008 11:52:17 -0000