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Summary: Rioja wines are aged in oak barrels, which adds the characteristic spicy flavor to Spanish wine. Learn how Rioja wines are made from a professional sommelier in this free video.
Views: 173 | Tags: wine, white, tasting, red, spanish, wines, pairings, vineyards
About the Expert
Mark Middlebrook Mark Middlebrook sells and writes about wine for Paul Marcus Wines in Oakland, California. When he's not in the wine shop, he's often picking grapes, tying ... read more
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Questions & AnswersHi I'm Mark Middlebrook and I'm here in the Paul Marcus Wines warehouse and in this segment I'd like to talk about the use of oak barrels in the making of Rioja wines, specifically red Rioja. Use of wooden barrels to ferment and age the wine has a long tradition in Rioja and in fact one of the interesting connection to America because of the conquistadors and other Spaniards coming over. They brought back either trees or barrels I'm not sure which, made from American oak, which is fairly unusual in Europe, where most people of course would use, most wine makers would use barrels from trees that grew nearby, in France or Hungary or wherever it might be. Nowadays as well the more traditional producers like Lopez De Aredia tend to put their wines into American oak barrels and age them for a fairly long time where they develop complexity and some spicy flavors and other characteristics that are fairly unique to Rioja, especially amongst European wines. Some of the more new school and more modern style producers have decided they don't really like that kind of more old fashioned flavor that you get from aging red wine in American oak barrels for a long time. So what they have chosen to do more recently in the past maybe a couple of decades is to instead employ French oak barrels which is kind of the standard for a lot of wine making both in Europe and in California in America now. The sense is that French oak barrels is a little more, little more sophisticated taste, maybe a little more elegance, a little less spice sometimes, a little less overtly oaky flavor for a barrel of the same age, American versus French. I personally like to drink both styles of wines and I think as long as the oak is in good balance with the fruit, acidity , the tannin and all the other elements of the wine, it's possible to make a great tasting wine that either in the old style or the new school way.
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