(InfoForum) - As a horticulturist, I’ve always had an appreciation for oak trees, especially the ones I came across in New York state, Georgia and Ohio.

There are some 500 species of oak worldwide, and, thank goodness, as students, we did not have to come close to knowing them all, just the ones that were local to the college campus where learning took place.

In North Dakota, there are few oak species, possibly changing as our climate continues to warm. Currently what we see commonly in our state are the Bur and Mongolian oaks, along with some attempts to get some red oak hybrids established.
 
Oaks of concern for the wine industry are of the white oak variety, primarily for barrel making. There is the French Oak, and the American White Oak (Quercus robur and Q. alba, respectively). Barrels used for aging wines and other spirits come from French, European and American oak.

The use of oak in wine can add many different dimensions to wine based on the type and style of the oak. Oak barrels, which can be charred before use, contribute to the color, taste and aroma of the contents, imparting a desirable oaky vanillin flavor to these drinks.

The great dilemma for wine producers is to choose between French and American oak woods. French oaks (Quercus robur, Q. petraea) give the wine greater refinement and are chosen for the best wines since they increase the price compared to those aged in American oak wood. American oak contributes greater texture and resistance to aging, but produces more powerful wine bouquets.

Then there is the oak species that produces the cork used in sealing wine bottles: Quercus suber, aka Cork Oak. The world concentration of this species is located in southwestern Europe – Spain, and primarily Portugal – where the trees are peeled of their outer bark about every 10 years. The cork bark is collected, graded, cleaned and sorted into various-quality levels for corking wine and spirit bottles, and for use in flooring and other construction uses.

Interestingly, there is a concern for barrel makers around the world as to where their oak wood comes from: American oak, French oak or Eastern European oak. Naturally, anything with the word “French” attached to it will garner a higher price on the market. This presents an opportunity to scam oak marketing a little, trying to pass off cheaper Eastern European oak as the more expensive French oak.

The late Jess Jackson, of Kendal-Jackson wines, knew of this possibility, and to head off being scammed this way, purchased his own French forest of trees, along with the townsfolk who would be responsible for making the barrels (called “coopers”). This assured beyond his lifetime a constant supply of the genuine oak wood for making the staves that go into the barrels, as well as assuring generations of coopers continuous employment.

Where there is a chance for scams, there eventually arises a means to keep it in check: DNA testing.