Are acacia barrels the future for white wine?

Jane Anson considers the merits of going oak-free and ageing white wine in acacia barrels...

I started off the new year with a tasting that was, I was told, a world first. A line up of 22 wines from seven countries, all white or rosé, dry and sweet, that had been aged in acacia barrels rather than in oak. It was certainly a first for me.

It was organised by Tonnellerie du Sud Ouest (TSO), a cooperage based in Gaillac, in southwest France. It’s an area with a history of using acacia barrels and currently the company sells 80% of its acacia barrel production overseas, with demand growing each year.

Scroll down for Jane Anson’s pick of wines aged in acacia barrels

‘We’ve seen an explosion of interest in acacia recently,’ Baudouin de Montgolfier of TSO tells me. ‘As the trend for less obviously oaked wines grows, producers are looking for ways to maintain mouthfeel without getting toasty, overly spicy or sweet vanilla flavours. Acacia offers a way to do that.’

‘I think of it as a super sub,’ says wine consultant Marc Dworkin, who works with acacia barrels at Château Mihope in Ningxia, China, among other places. ‘It doesn’t work with every style, and doesn’t give the tannic structure for most reds, but it over-performs in certain conditions. It offers texture and mid-palate weight without drowning the wine in the process,’ he explains.

Alternatives to oak have been around for, well, as long as barrels have. Historically producers might have used cherry, mulberry, redwood, chestnut, ash or even pine, depending on what was available locally.

French acacia, known also as black locust (robinia pseudoacacia), is actually native to the United States and was introduced into Europe in the 1600s. Even today it represents a tiny proportion of the French barrel industry, but it has several advantages for producers, not least the fact that it’s slightly cheaper than oak barrels ($470 compared to $650 with coopers Artisan Barrels, for example).

The French acacia forests used by TSO are also used as sources for oak – so mainly in the north and northeast, along the Vosges mountains, in the Jura, Alsace and Franche-Comté.

Unlike oak, acacia trees can be sawed rather than split into staves, because they don’t have the same issue of grain that needs to be followed. The occasional knot in the wood is not such a big deal either, and it grows quicker, reaching a useable size in 80 to 120 years, unlike 200 years for French oak, which makes them a little more sustainable. Although currently there is less of it around, so it’s a little harder to source than oak.

Drawbacks of acacia include colour leeching – I found a number of wines with a rich yellow colour that was a little at odds with expectations for a young dry white, although the Sauvignon Blanc and Riesling seemed to avoid this problem, so perhaps it’s linked to acidity levels. It is also harder for coopers to work with because the toasting level needs to be very carefully controlled and kept extremely light for best results.

Having said that, acacia seems particularly well-suited to the ageing of white wines, mainly because its personality is less marked than oak can be, giving space to the grape variety and a host of other site-specific characteristics.

For a true comparison, it would be necessary to try these samples aged in the same proportions of acacia against oak, whereas we tasted finished wines that had used varying amounts – from 5% to 100% acacia, to a 50/50 mix of acacia and oak. So I’m not claiming this is a scientifically robust study but there did seem to be a number of wines with heightened floral notes, alongside clear citrus. I was less impressed with the acacia barrels that had been well-toasted, the result seemed to be sweet toffee or even bacon, while others had some wet straw character, rather than the smoky, grilled edge of toasted oak.

Overall there were a number of excellent wines and none that you would say were overly dominated by the character of the wood. In Bordeaux right now, Châteaux Carbonnieux, Yquem, La Louvière and Pressac (where this tasting was held) are trialing the impact of acacia, as are several rosé producers in Provence – who are also attracted by the potential for mouthfeel without intrusive flavours – as are Weingut Pfaffl and Nimmervoll, both in Austria.

‘No one wants their wine to seem over-made any more,’ says Dworkin ‘And acacia might just be ready to step into the breach’.

Wines aged in acacia barrels:

See also:

Cooperage: The art of oak ageing

Jefford: The cooper’s tale