Oak in Winemaking

I consider oak as the make-up for wines. If Used right, it will make most wines appear better. 

The problems are: 

1 not everyone knows how to use it,

 sometimes the wines get over oaked and become a wood soup 

2 the oak is expensive 

To make a french oak,you have to cut an oak tree more than 150 years old, and the first 3 meters from the bottom (so the best part) are for wine barrels, only the rest are for wood floorings and furniture. Some cheap wines have strong wood flavor, only because they soak wood chips in wines.

There are some markets that prefer oaked wines, such as Chinese, and there are some markets that prefer original flavor without oak interfering, such as Italian. There is always a question what is the right extent to use oak.

Terre Margaritelli is a good example if you want to discuss on this matter. Because Margaritelli is an established wood supplier in the first place, and got into the wine business later.

Margaritelli produces all of their own oak barrels, but they use them with restraint, making the oak give extra complexity to the wine without giving too much sense of presence to itself. As a result, they make elegant and balanced wines instead of a mouthful of oak soup.