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My wife and I are wine lovers, and NC has a booming winery business on the back of Golden Leaf grants. We have taken to visiting them, and have to date visited 34 of the NC wineries, and tasted another 15 or so at festivals.
One of the local wineries had 3 varieties of the same wine, one aged in French oak, one American, and one in Hungarian oak (the third country of oak cooperage), and after having tasted them back to back, I've been able to reliably identify the different oaks. I'm not saying I have super-palate, it's just very distinctive. American oak is very aggressive in comparison to French, and Hungarian falls in the middle. In fact, I'd go so far as to say I think that I could identify the oak more reliably than the grape used.
Unfortunately, some wineries worldwide are using a lot of chips, staves, and even sawdust to give a more oaky-character in wines that are aged in steel and plastic, and that's giving oak a bad name. Some of these overaggressive methods are ruining some wines that would probably be okay otherwise.
Costs are high on barrels, with French oak barrels in the $850-1000 range, American oak in the $650-800 range, and Hungarian in the middle. I wouldn't say that American oak barrels have no place in winemaking, because they yield an excellent product when used properly. The winemaker needs to use the barrels as spices, just like a chef. Too-aggresive oak is like too much cilantro...Nasty.
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