German Reds and Oak Barrels with Christophe Thörle, Guest Blogger

I’ve been tasting German Pinot Noirs for many years now and I think that German winemakers are finally turning the corner and making world class Pinot Noir.  One of the major challenges that they faced was that there really was no understanding either at their schools or in their community of how to properly use oak.

Previously, almost all of the German Pinots I tasted had oak notes that were, for lack of a better word, nasty.  They dominated the wines and obliterated any sense of terroir.

I’ve noticed in the past few years that the Pinots have a sense of balance that is more akin to well made Burgundy.  The wines do taste different (as the terroir is different) but they are clearly classic, old world Pinot Noir.

The use of oak is not a simple use/don’t use decision.  It’s actually quite complex.  I thought that it might be interesting to ask a German winemaker to give his thoughts on the topic.  Below is a brief essay from Christoph Thörle (a very well regarded winemaker in Rheinhessen) on how he thinks about the use of oak in Pinot Noir as well as some of the factors that winemakers have to consider.

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Our philosophy is to produce Pinot Noirs that show on the one hand the elegance of the fruit with a perfect balanced acidity and on the other hand structure and complexity. The cool microclimate of northern Rheinhessen’s vineyards in combination with its marine sediment- and limestone soils are perfect conditions for Pinot Noir.

One major part of the winemaking process with Pinot Noir is the use of oak. When you put a lot of hours of work into your vineyards over the year, to produce perfect grapes, that reflect the characteristics of their respective terroir, you don’t want to mess everything by using the wrong barrels.

The barrel selection is a critical decision in order to refine the texture and balance of the wine. Our barrel selection is composed of only French oak from Burgundian coopers with their long tradition of Pinot Noir. Most of our barrels are from Taransaud (Beaune) and Damy (Mersault). When it comes to barrel selection, there is no “one-size-fits-all”, because each vineyard and especially each vintage is different and you need to adjust your barrel selection accordingly. Buying something like a M, L, or XL toasting off the shelf might not be the best approach. For our barrel selection, we go to their origin and drive every year to our coopers in Burgundy, just shortly before the harvest. At this point we know the weather conditions of the year and decide if we should adjust the toasting, the origin (Vosges, Troncais or Allier) or the maturation of the oak for the new vintage.

Another decision is the proportion of new oak we use, which fluctuates from 15% to 50% with the remaining barrels ageing from 1 year old to 7 years old.

The amount of time that the wine ages in the barrels is also crucial.  We age our Pinot Noirs between 10 and 20 months based again on vintage and vineyard.

Our philosophy with the use of oak is that the oak should be a support of structure and an element of complexity but we never want the fruit to be masked by it.

Christoph Thörle
Weingut Thorle