<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">I never even thought about the oak barrels for wine as it helps impart flavor. Living near the Jack Daniels distillery, I forgot that they also use all used charred oak barrels from vineyards for aging. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
it really taste very similar whether smoked with it or aged in it. I taste vanilla but I'm sure there's other flavors there too. It definitely has an iconic taste that is associated with whiskey and wine, which carries over to bbq. As far as its original use, it probably had more to do with what trees were available that yielded the best barrel staves*. However, now oak flavor is now an essential element and people can identify with it which makes it an ideal bbq ingredient. How things might be if europe was riddled with tall straight hickory trees, instead of oak, when wine production evolved.
*I'm no expert on wine (or whiskey) but I do know a bit about beer. Smoked beers are occasionally produced now, and come from lightly smoking the barley during the malting process. This was the way all beers were produced before the invention of the kiln. What is now considered a novelty was actually standard and dropped when better technology came along. I imagine something like this could have occurred if steel tanks came along early in the evolution wine, we would now be enjoying a charming, novelty chardonnay aged in oak barrels as a change of pace from the standard. Whatever the case was for its use (oak has good flavor or oak makes good barrels) we have oak in our flavor memory, so be a pro and use it to make an impression on a wide range of people.
