[TheRiddick]

Yep, barrel oak :-) Basically, one way to get higher Parker and Laube scores. Many play that game, some refuse to (I do). Oak flavor and tannins are fine up to a point, but cross that line and all you get is vanilla milk shake flavor and drying tannins that bury the fruit. Show me a winery that proudly proclaims they use 100% new oak and I will show you a wine I do not like. Balance is key and lately I buy wines that are made same way I prefer making mine, oak program is carefully dialed in and only determined right at the time before we press (after figuring out just how much oak the fruit can handle, based on vintage conditions, fruit flavors as ferments finish and how much (max) tannin I want in finished wine). Different coopers and forests are used for each vineyard, some barrels play nice with vineard A and completely wreak havoc on vineyard B, so it takes some time to figure out what works. Many buy barrels on "name recognition" never spending time to really analyze if they actually work for the fruit sources. Its an ever evolving process of you want it done right, wine barrels is whole new ballgame and science.

I hear you on David Bruce, my comment was on his recent vintages. About 4 years ago a number of us congregated for a weekend soire at Pisoni Estate, toured the 3 vineyards and drank a lot. Brian Loring brought a case of Pinots he bought the day before, one bottle in particular blew all of us away. Yep, David Bruce, made from an up and coming (then) vineyard right below Garys' Vineyard, simply amazing stuff. Too bad they could not reproduce it again. I also tasted through David Bruce Petites about 3 years ago, but even though I could tell the fruit was great, the wines were "killed" IMO by the use of too much new oak, American to boot, which simply did not play nice with the fruit. But that's a real travesty with most of Petite producers, Petite by definition, has plenty of tannic structure via small berry/thick skin ratio and forcing yet another layer of tannin and oak flavors only muddles the whole deal. If you look at the best made CA Petites, all of them are made with neutral oak: Pride (no longer made), Switchback Ridge, Corte Riva, Outpost, Robert Foley. I'll add mine to the list since I learned from these guys. This is the premier Petite shelf, bar none. Once you move away from that, you start seeing new oak in spades and in a blind tasting the difference is profound.