Will wine ever again be without oak flavours? How did most in our glass get to this? Why? Two tastings drew reflection.

Sitting at the sturdy, polished wooden table, deep in the heart of the famous Bergkelder in Stellenbosch, with a row of the now legendary six-pack of differently wooded Fleur du Cap cabernet sauvignon wines, vintage 1986, thoughts about the effects of barrels and oak were inevitable.

But in the light of the previous day’s tasting, at the launch of Eben Sadie’s range of Ouwingerdreeks (Old Vine series) wines, where this enterprising, truly adventurous winemaker gave the tree and vat merchants a kick in the teeth, the issue of wood and wine took on a wider resonance.

The question, finally, is really what do winemakers want to achieve with wood treatment. Are they playing the public taste, or are they truly on the ball, making the finest wine from the grapes at their disposal? Have consumers got addicted to wood flavours? Have winemakers, who are not quite sure of themselves in this fashionable business, steered them there? Is coffee-tasting wine still wine?

When Eben Sadie explained how he made the newly-released wines from ancient vineyards - his aim is to produce it as simply as possible, as naturally as he can - his use of wood containers were just that. Old barrels, some specifically worked and washed as not to impart flavour, were used. The results were obvious in the each and every of these brilliant wines: all gently poised, expressing their origins as old vines and flavours of the grapes. In others words, wines that smell and taste, and linger in one’s mouth and mind, as products of the fruit in the vineyard.

Die Bergkelder tasting celebrated the life of the well-known wine personality Julius Lazlo, who died a few months ago. His contribution to the wines of the then Distillers Corporation (now part of Distell) is of great significance, as can be seen at a new exposition at the Bergkelder. One such was the introduction of wood use to the company’s top brands.

The six bottles of Fleur du Cap Cabernet Sauvignon 1986, each individually labelled spelling out the wood used, were released in a special wooded box. At the time, it was meant as a ‘special treat’ to winelovers to check for themselves the effects of different oak barrels on the same wine, treated exactly the same in vinification. Significantly, it was the era when small wood barrels for reds became the thing. (Is this when our wooded wine lust started?)

A collector’s item, the six-pack has become one of those iconic simulacra of the local wine culture.(These days quite rare, a single case is to be sold at the upcoming Nederburg auction.)

After 24 years, the old Fleur du Cap wines were interesting, more so than that they’e offer drinking pleasure. Intact, certainly, and showing age, but more noteworthy for what is left of the heavy hand of wood (three different French oak barrels, one Spanish, one American and one ‘blend’) that crafted the sturdy cabernet sauvignon juice of that year under Lazlo’s direction. The Nevers cast seemed to have delivered the best wine of the day, with more fruit still showing. The American treatment had resulted in Rioja flavours on the nose, but nothing more. The ‘blend’ had a slightly rounder palate structure, but the nose was of a wine past its best.

In the end it was somewhat depressing. Would the original solid, bold cabernet sauvignon have lasted better or turned into a better aged wine without the wood? Or much less of it? (New casts, mostly, 24 months of it, originally.)

It could be that Eben Sadie’s red in his new series will not last 24 years; one never knows. But if it does, this glorious cinsaut (yes, cinsaut), called Pofadder 2009, from 50-year-old vines on the Swartland’s Riebeekberg, will be a noble marker if, today, a producer decides that when it comes to wood treatment, much, much less is so much more. Even in its youth, it’s a far better drink.