Prefermentation American Oak (10 g/gallon, 1 week exposure): Dry, but brings out citrus and vanilla flavors.  Oak very subtle, but definitely detectable.

Prefermentation French Oak (10 g/gallon, 1 week exposure): oak is also very subtle, but adds to the flavor; seems to add more to the mid-palate than the prefermentation American oak.

Post fermentation American oak (1 month exposure):  Oak more perceptible, wine is more buttery with more vanilla; 10 grams per gallon oak definitely more intense oak flavors than 5 grams per gallon, and both more oak flavors than the prefermentation oak.  10 grams per gallon post-fermentation oak is almost a little too much for the American oak, finishes flat with no mid-palate.

Post fermentation French oak (1 month exposure): the most “pleasant” oak flavors to our palates.  Smooth, rich mid-palate with cloves and cinnamon.  Again, the 10 grams per gallon is almost a little too much, though with longer aging this may turn around.

Our favorite is the post-fermentation 5 grams per gallon French oak, and we both prefer the French oak over American; it’s a more subtle, rounded oak influence than the American.  However, I remember that at the Winemaker magazine conference in Santa Barbara, all of us at the table preferred the prefermentation oak samples.  Tim used a different Chardonnay kit than I did, which could definitely influence our preferences.  In fact, I’m sure if I did this trial with a zinfandel or cabernet, I would prefer American oak over French, based on how it compliments the varietal.

It is very interesting to taste the difference between pre-fermentation oak and post-fermentation oak.  The yeast metabolize the oak flavor molecules to yield a different flavor profile.  However, this type of oak trial is quite an endeavor, and not something to do with every wine!  But, if you’re feeling ambitious, I highly recommend doing one on your own.  Maybe try both a red and a white!

One reason I was prompted to open this wine again is the announcement by Winexpert that they will be reinstating crushed grape pack kits again. They say the new kits will be an improvement over the old Crushendo kits, and after my experience with this one kit (and the only Crushendo I made, I admit) I hope they mean it! The new kits should be out soon, and I’ll definitely get them in stock at Curds and Wine (shameless self promotion).

Thanks to the great bottling pump I have, I bottled 53 bottles of 2009 “Cabrillo Bridge” Petite Sirah and 60 bottles of Chardonnay oak trials in just 3 hours.  Too bad the bottling pump doesn’t also clean up everything …

I tasted a little of the unoaked Chardonnay to see what it’s like, I haven’t had this particular Winexpert Chardonnay kit yet.  I really, really liked it, it has lots of apple and a nice fresh, round mouthfeel.  I’m looking forward to tasting my own oak trials side-by-side!  Thanks for the inspiration, Tim Vandergrift!!!

I weighed out the oak chips into the one-gallon jugs before racking, then put airlocks on top of them all:  American oak at 5 grams and 10 grams per gallon, French oak at 5 grams and 10 grams per gallon, and one unoaked control.  Now they will hang out for 4 weeks and then get bottled.  Stay tuned!

I was inspired by Tim Vandergrift’s Hands-On oak trials at the Winemaker Magazine Conference in Santa Barbara to set up my own set of oak trials.  I decided to just get a basic chardonnay kit, the Winexpert Vintners’ Reserve Chardonnay.  This kit does come with a small pack of oak, but I pulled it out.  My set up is as follows:

#1: unoaked control

#2: prefermentation American oak 10 g/gallon

#3: prefermentation French oak 10 g/gallon

#4: post fermentation American oak 5 g/gallon

#5: post fermentation French oak 5 g/gallon

#6: post fermentation American oak 10 g/gallon

#7: post fermentation French oak 10 g/gallon

I’ll be using my own oak chips for the experiment; one variable I’m not happy about is that my French oak is a medium toast, but the American oak is untoasted.  I set up 2 wine kits, one I made as one batch and left out any oak, to be split up into 6-one gallon batches for post-oaking later.  The second kit I made up and split to 2-3 gallon batches before sprinkling on the yeast, which I split over the 2 split batches.  I didn’t want a ton of oak trial wine, so that’s why I decided to split it up this way.

I racked the wines out of primary fermentation today at day 6, the specific gravity is already at 0.994 for all batches.  I will stabilize and clear the unoaked batch as one batch, then rack out to individual 1-gallon batches about a week after that to make things a little easier.  I’m planning to leave the chips in for 4 weeks, then bottling all of the wines.  I have been debating how long the post-oak should stay in for this trial, but from my past experience 4 weeks seems to be a reasonable amount of time;  however, then it is a longer time than the preoak, which is inevitable anyway.  Not a perfectly controlled experiment, but it should yield results as interesting as Tim’s experiment.  They should all have at least a month before I open any for taste testing.

My pal Ray also submitted his 2009 Primitivo and won a Silver medal.  Paul entered the 2009 merlot and petite sirah that we recently bottled, and won a Gold medal for the petite sirah and Bronze medal for the merlot. Mike and Tricia Hoffman won several medals as well, Mike got a Gold medal for his sangiovese and a Silver for his primitivo (from a different source than mine and Ray’s), and Tricia won a Silver medal and Best of Class for an Amarone wine kit! Several other people won awards for wine kits at the fair, too. Congratulations to everyone!

Susanne Hunter won Silver medal and Best of Class with her Pinot Grigio wine kit

Beth Roseman and Gesa Cowell (not shown) won Gold medals for their Riesling wine kits

Tricia won a Silver Medal and Best of Class for her Amarone wine kit

The first day we attended “10 Winemaking Techniques You Need to Know” with Daniel Pambianchi and then “Wine Kit Adventures” with Winexpert’s Tim Vandergrift.  Then is was time for lunch out on the patio and a keynote address by Brian Loring of Loring Wine Company, where he talked about the good, bad, and ugly of making wine professionally.  Of course we forgot the lunch would be outside, so we all got pretty nice sunburns!

After lunch it was on to “Wine Kit Q&A” with the ever-entertaining Tim Vandergrift and the more serious Peter Smith from RJ Spagnols.  Things got a little heated in that session, but it was very informative.  Next up was the Hands-on Blending Workshop with Pat Henderson.  Blending trials are always fun, especially with 400 other winemakers in the room!

During a break we got a chance to taste several Cellar Craft wines.  The Red Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon was outstanding, and the Amarone was also exceptional.  I definitely want to make the Amarone soon.

That evening was the best part — the Wine Swap dinner.  Everyone was invited to bring bottles of their own wine to open up and share.  It was a great night, tasting lots of wines from other winemakers around the country and experiencing different styles of winemaking.

The next day we started up with Daniel Pambianchi again, this time discussing “Adjusting Acid, Mouthfeel, Aroma & Flavor.”  It was a very interesting seminar, as I learned that in other parts of the continent people have trouble getting high enough brix to start their wines, and it actually gets cold enough outside to do cold stabilization on your patio in the winter.  I really do have to disagree with Daniel when he said “never water back your wine” — dude, we sometimes get our grapes at 28 brix!  I don’t really want to be making port.

After Daniel’s seminar was The Wine Wizard Alison Crowe with “Troubleshooting Off-Odors, Off-Flavors, & Off-Colors.”  She is a great speaker, she started out playing “People are strange” with her first slide, then showing my favorite picture of Albert Einstein with his tongue sticking out.  She could relate a little better to the problems California winemakers have, too.

Then it was once again time for lunch.  This time they had the foresight to put out some umbrellas, and we put on sunscreen.  Lunch included a Q&A panel with the Big Five columnists from Winemaker Magazine:  Wes Hagen, Daniel Pambianchi, Tim Vandergrift, Alison Crowe, and Chik Brenneman.  There were a lot of great questions, and as usual there was no single answer.  The theme of the conference seemed to be, “if you ask 5 winemakers how to make wine, you’ll get 12 answers.”  The one thing that did come up was the use of Flextanks, and the panel was not a fan.  They mainly said that the Flextank is not good for holding wine long-term, so now I’d like to get our syrah out of the Flextank as soon as it is oaked enough.

Later that afternoon was another Hands-On Workshop, this time it was Oak Trials with Tim Vandergrift.  I really enjoyed this workshop, it was very interesting to experience the difference between pre-fermentation  and post-fermenation oak additions, and to be able to compare French and American oak treatments side-by-side.  This is an experiment I’d like to do myself.

That evening was the Awards dinner.  Several local winemakers won awards, including a Gold Medal to Ron Bas for his “Bastian Cellars” 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon port, and Mars Muller of Fallbrook won a silver medal for his 2009 Shiraz Noir.  In addition, Micole Moore and Teri Kerns of Ramona Ranch Vineyards were awarded a bronze medal for their 2008 Brunello and a gold medal and Best of Show for their 2009 Zin!  Congratulations to all the winners, and thanks to all of the great presenters and hosts at the conference!

A few more Limited Edition wine kits have come in.  I posted previously about starting the Cellar Craft Chateau du Pays; I’m going to bulk age this wine for while, but I did do an extra racking about a month after stabilizing and clearing to take out the second addition of Hungarian oak cubes, so it wouldn’t overoak.  The Cellar Craft rhone white blend of Marsanne-Viognier-Roussane and Winexpert’s Austrian Gruner Veltliner arrived and will be bottled in a few weeks.

The limited edition I’m most excited about right now is Winexpert’s Spanish Rose, “a blend of red and white varietals, including popular Spanish Tempranillo.”  It has a super-cool bright magenta color and yummy fruit-laden aromas.

In the meantime, we’re thoroughly enjoying the Pacific White Limited Edition from Winexpert.  It’s too bad I only made one of these kits, and now they’re sold out!