Trends in oak

What oak profiles are people moving towards these days? And what wine trends can we see based on oak sales? While AMSAT supplies oak to a quite a specific segment of the market, what we are producing paints a great picture of where the wine market is right now.

Chips and Staves

If you look back just 2 vintages ago, our supply of oak was almost entirely oak chips. While chips are still the largest selling product for us, staves have grown at an incredible rate. Contributing to this are 2 key factors:

1.       Some large commercial wineries have moved towards the production of more premium wines, replacing chips in maturation with stave fans.

2.       Some premium wineries have looked towards lower cost methods for producing their wines, replacing barrels with stave fans.

Toast

Toast levels also paint an interesting, yet arguably predictable picture of wines stylistically. 2 years ago, 60% of the oak we supplied were toasted to a Mocha or Medium Plus level. In 2022 this same volume came down a toast level or 2, with a rapid move towards House and Medium toasts. This trend follows the desire for wines to be more fruit-forward and varietal-driven.

Further Development

With these trends in mind, we’re ramping up our investment in toasting trials, with a particular focus on staves. Over the coming months we’ll be trialling staves with a variety of precise and elegant toasts. These products will be designed to add structure and play a supporting role to the fruit.

If you would like to be involved in these trials in any way, please feel free to contact us to discuss the opportunity further.