UPDATE: Sherry; "Spanish Oak" - which is it?

On Monday I had a story about the effects of sherrry vs. Spanisk oak on sherried single malts.
The story resulted in a great comment from wine & sherry expert Beau Jarvis of Basic Juice.

Caspar MacRae, of The Macallan responds:

Hello Kevin,

Great - this is the sort of question that those of us involved with The Macallan can really get our teeth into!

Beau is largely right. The vast majority of sherry matured in the soleras of Jerez is matured in American Oak (Quercus alba) sherry butts. The oak is imported from the States prior to coopering and creating the large Bota Jerzana's sherry butts. A producer like Gonzales Byass will have in excess of 150,000 butts, of which the majority will be American oak.

However anyone whose familiarity with sherry comes from single malt whiskies, would be forgiven for thinking that sherry was matured in European or Spanish Oak (Quercus robur). This is because this is the most sought after cask for whisky maturation. When casks of this type became less fashionable in Jerez, The Macallan took the extraordinary step of commissioning Quercus robur casks to be made, and matured with sherry, exclusively for us. Today we have a partner company - "Tevesa" - who carefully select 10,000 Spanish oak trees a year from sustainable forests in Northern Spain. These are processed in Santander, before 2 years of sun drying and then 3 years of sherry maturation in the soleras of a range of producers. Today the Macallan has about 50,000 casks maturing in Jerez in this way.

One of the reasons these casks are so expensive is that Sherry producers charge us for solera 'space'. They would prefer to be using American oak casks.

When you purchase a bottle of Sherry Oak Macallan - the 12, 18, 25 or 30 year old whiskies - it is rich in woodspice, dried fruits and toffee flavours due to the exclusive use of Spanish Oak sherry casks. However when you purchase a bottle of Fine Oak Macallan (10, 15, 17 or 21), exactly the same spirit displays honey, vanilla, citrus and floral notes. The cask selection for Fine Oak is three types of cask; Spanish oak sherry cask, American oak bourbon casks - and a high level of American oak sherry casks.

A long reply - but an interesting subject!

Speak soon,
Caspar MacRae
The Macallan Ambassador
The Edrington Group, Scotland

And this from an undisclosed source:

The really important thing, is what TYPE of oak we're talking about.  Sherry casks from American oak won't give the spice and fruit character that you'll get from sherry casks made from Quercus robur, or “Pedunculate Oak” (the traditional, but not exclusive, type of oak used for sherry casks, which can be sourced from Spain, France, Germany, Hungary, etc.)

How about we stop referring to it as "Spanish Oak" or even sherry oak - and simply refer to it as ex-sherry. And we'll stop assuming that ex-sherry = Quercus robur.

The problem this presents is that they will continue to be confusion as to whether it is the wood or the sherry which has the impact.

Comments

[beau]

Flogging a little more oak..

Q. alba is white oak - referred to in the wine world as American oak.

Q. robur goes by the names 'common oak,' 'Pedunculate oak' or 'English oak.' In fact this particular species of oak can be found north into Scandanavia; south into Turkey and east to the Ural mountains. Thus, labeling it Spanish oak is a bit misleading. Perhaps 'Spanish-grown' oak would be more accurate?

As to the question about barrel seasoning w/r/t Scotch, I would say it doesn't matter from which spp. of oak a barrel is made. After holding Sherry for several years, a barrel will be thoroughly 'sherried.' In the wine world, a barrel is considered inert (i.e. not imparting flavor) after only a few years' worth of use.

So unless a Scotch producer is using new or 2,3,4th-use barrels, I doubt the barrel's mother wood is adding much flavor. Rather the seasoning is coming from the Sherry residue (for lack of a better term).

[Kevin Erskine]

Spanish Oak sounds more romantic, I guess.

On the ex-Bourbon side, Scotch producers are getting casks that have been used once. On the Sherry side, I would guess it is hard to say with great certainty, unless, like Macallan, they are made to order.

Some distilleries DO have the casks shaved down and re-toasted after the barrel has been "used up" on both the sherry and bourbon side.

The science side and marketing guys says that the Robur imparts a much different flavor than does white oak.

And I can only speak for the sherried whiskies that I have had vs the bourbon-cask aged whiskies. I can't comment on a sherried whisky that was aged in ex-sherry white oak casks. I may have had one already one, but I couldn't say for sure.

Would be interesting to do a comparative tasting.

It would also be interesting to taste whisky aged in a pendunculate cask, that had been used to age bourbon, to see what impact the wood has.