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WINEMAKER INTERVIEW 56 WINES&VINES August 2018 W inemaker Joe Dobbes grew up on a farm in Oregon's Willamette Val- ley, where he raised marionberries, a type of blackberry. His father, a doctor, was also a home wine- maker, and young Joe liked to spend his time in the kitchen, developing his inter- est in diverse flavors. By the time Dobbes graduated from Southern Oregon University with a degree in biology, the wine industry had taken hold in Oregon. Dobbes traveled to Europe to explore winemaking, first in Germany at Weingut Erbhof Tesch in 1985, then in Burgundy at Domaine Georges Roumier and Domaine des Comtes Lafon in the late 1980s, with a stint back home at Elk Cove Vineyards in between. When he c a m e h o m e f r o m France, he held sev- eral jobs in Oregon before starting his own company in 2002. That company now en- compasses Dobbes Fam- ily Estate, Wine by Joe and Jovino. I n J u n e 2 0 1 7 , D o b b e s launched a mobile bottling com- pany, Dundee Mobile Bottlers, and last fall he stepped aside from day-to-day operations of the winery, although he's still a partner in the business. He's in the process of expanding the bot- tling business and plans to add a canning line. Q In your mobile bottling company, you use a variety of closures. Which closures are you using for your own wine brands and why? Joe Dobbes: For Dobbes Family Estate wines, we are currently using DIAM corks for the red wines and are transitioning to Stelvin for the white wines. We have been using the Stelvin with Saranex liner for a number of years on our Wine by Joe and Jovino brands. The transition to DIAM was rooted in about 13 years of bottling my own wines and another 30 or so years of overall experience with corks. We con- ducted small-scale in-house trials and looked hard at what other respected wineries were doing, as well as large custom-winemaking clients of ours using DIAM. Over time, it became a very easy decision. Every cork is the same. Every bottle tastes the same. DIAM and other technical cork producers offer closures with varying degrees of oxygen transfer rates (OTR). This is a great tool. However, I am a firm believer that it is better to control the amount of oxygen your wines are exposed to during the winemaking and aging process and to not cross my fingers and depend upon a closure to take a wine where I want it to go once in the bottle. A few peers have told me they want some dissolved oxy- gen (DO) pickup going into the bottle. I don't believe in this at all. If your wine is still in need of some air during the bottling process, then how much control do you r e a l l y h a v e ? H o w much is enough and how much is too much for the future of the wine? Are you mitigating a higher DO pickup at bot- tling with increased levels of sulfur dioxide? I say give the wine what it needs along the way, then diminish the DO level to as low as possible and put the wine into the bottle in its most perfect state possible. I have often stated that I think the most perfect wine closure would be a 750-ml glass ampule — nothing in, nothing out, anaerobic and only natural polymerizations and aging process. Crown caps are the second-best alternative, but this is more of a marketing decision. Cans are a new venture for the Wine by Joe brand and have been quite successful to date. I look at cans as the next frontier since screwcap closures. Q In your mobile bottling business, what sorts of advice do you give to your cus- tomers regarding closures? Dobbes: The theme of Dundee Mobile Bottlers is "bottling for winemakers by winemakers." My A CONVERSATION WITH Joe Dobbes Oregon winemaker discusses closures and how to eliminate problems on bottling day By Laurie Daniel