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J A N ULA R Y W S W S APRI NE NE Headlines NEWS BYTES Premiere Approaches Record T he Napa Valley Vintners' 17th annual Premiere Napa Valley auction Feb. 23 brought in $3.04 million, nearly matching last year's recordbreaking $3.1 million. The top lot of 1,498 Flock to Eastern Winery Exposition the auction that supports the vintners group was van Cellars and Chateau Boswell Winery. The 120 bottles averaged $625 each. Other top lots were $50,000 for the Reynolds Family Winery and Shafer Vineyards, $45,000 for 120 bottles of Robert Keenan Winery at $375 each L and $40,000 for 60 bottles of Kapcsandy Family Winery and 240 of Rombauer Vineyards. Lots varied from 60 to 240 bottles. Shafer recorded the highest per-bottle price of $833, while the average was $160.75 and the lowest $33. lori stahl 16 W in e s & V i ne s AP R I L 2 013 Learn more: Search keyword "Premiere record." $75,000 for a Cabernet blend from Be- Attendance up from inaugural year at industry conference and trade show in Pennsylvania ancaster, Pa.—Winery owners and winemakers from far-flung sections of the eastern United States dodged a much-hyped snowstorm to convene March 6 in Lancaster for the second annual Eastern Winery Exposition. Attendees chose from 11 different conference sessions about topics ranging from "Avoiding Oxidation in Small Wineries" to a social media workshop covering how to set up Facebook pages and use Pinterest. Another 11 sessions took place March 7, and the last day of the conference March 8 featured a daylong event billed as the "New Grape Grower Workshop," plus a half-day "Hard Cider Workshop." In spite of a rare, heavy snowstorm in Virginia and Maryland, event director Bob Mignarri said registrations reached 1,060—beating last year's registration by more than 125. The exposition, which was sponsored by Wines & Vines, included a tradeshow with 175 exhibitors. Mignarri calculated that total attendance including exhibitor personnel was 1,498. Wine journalist Richard Leahy organized the conference sessions into separate tracks for newcomers, enology, viticulture and money/management/marketing. Virginia-based winemaking consultant Thomas Payette presented a primer for newcomers about how to avoid oxidation in their wineries. Payette discouraged winemakers from using variable-capacity tanks except for very short periods. He also discouraged storing wine in partially full tanks of any type except for short periods leading to bottling, even when they are topped up with inert gases. winesandvines.com Attendeees listen and take notes during a seminar about phenolic management of aromatic white wines. During sur lie barrel storage, keep in mind that yeast at the bottom will continue to give off CO2 gas. Payette said he has smelled CO2 still winesandvines.com gassing off after two Learn more: Search keywords years in Chardon"Eastern Exposition." nay barrels. If you keep adding SO2, it will just keep getting absorbed, he said, so instead keep it cool and do lots of stirring. Payette said that if a winemaker did not properly manage oxygen at bottling then it would magnify any defects after bottling. He said it is important to measure the SO2 four months after bottling, since that indicates how much oxygen protection is in the wine. "If you're down to 10ppm, you've got a problem. If it's 30ppm, then you are probably good." It is important to sparge the bottles with an inert gas—Payette prefers nitrogen—before filling and also to use a vacuum to avoid driving that gas into the wine as the cork is inserted. With a big red wine it might not be necessary, however. —Jim Gordon AVA Boosts South Oregon T he new Elkton Oregon AVA became official March 7. The AVA encompasses nearly acres, only 75,000 of 96.5 which are winesandvines.com Learn more: Search keyword "Elkton Oregon." planted with vines. The appellation is located along the Umpqua River and separated from the Umpqua Valley AVA by a low ridge of hills, making it a cooler growing area than the rest of southern Oregon. B.C. Considers Grape Varieties G rowers in British Columbia approved a referendum to add the variet- ies Albariño and Verdejo to the list of grapes allowed winesandvines.com Learn more: Search keyword "B.C. varieties." under the B.C. Wines of Marked Quality Regulations. The decision about the varieties, which account for just a tiny fraction of B.C.'s total acreage, now rests with the B.C. Ministry of Agriculture.