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winemaker interview 36 Wines&Vines February 2015 Q Please give us a preview of your upcoming pre- sentation about oak and tannin for the Wines & Vines Oak Conference. James Kennedy: My plan for this talk is to update the audi- ence on work from around the world with regard to oak and tannin and to relate this information to wines and their aging. One of the major goals is to provide quantitative information about what oak barrels "give" to wine. As an example, although oak barrels do not contribute much tannin to red wine, the structure of oak-derived tannins is different than grape-based tannins and interacts differently with oxygen. Does that unique chemistry impart special qualities with regard to wine quality? My talk will explore this question and more. Q If oak barrels aren't directly contributing much tannin to the wine, what role do they play in the development of red wine? Oak barrels are critically important to wine aging for a number of reasons. First is that different interaction of oak-derived tannins to oxygen. Second, as an oxygen- permeable storage vessel, the oak barrel allows for con- trolled oxidation of wine, which is very important to development. Finally, oak barrels provide aroma and flavor to wine. Q How did you get interested in studying tannins in red wine? My fascination with red wine tannins can be traced back to a couple of people. The first person was Dr. Vernon Single- ton. I took a class in wine aging from Dr. Singleton at UC Davis in the mid-1980s, and I was absolutely blown away and became fascinated with age-worthy red wines. A large part of that fascination was the chemistry of red wine tan- nins and their role in the aging process. The second person was Paul Draper of Ridge Vineyards. I worked at Ridge in the mid-1990s and again was blown away by the ageability of the wines that had been produced D r. James Kennedy, chair of the Department of Viticulture and Enology at California State Uni- versity, Fresno, was raised near another famed wine school, the University of California, Davis. Growing up near the university's farm, Kennedy says he was "fascinated with the grape and wine industry at a young age." Although he says wine "was just in my bones," there were a lot of detours in his career. When he left high school, Kennedy intended to become a forester and stud- ied at Sierra College in Rocklin, Calif. But his love of fermenta- tion science never left him, and Ken- nedy transferred to UC Davis. He earned his bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1987 and went to work in the pharmaceutical industry. As much as Ken- n e d y e n j o y e d t h e chemistry, he missed agriculture, so one day he answered an ad for a job at a winery. That winery turned out to be Ridge Vineyards in the Santa Cruz Mountains. After a few years there, he went back to school and earned his Ph.D. in agricultural and environmental chemistry at UC Davis in 1999. He went on to do postdoctoral research on grape and wine phenolic chemistry at the University of Adelaide in Aus- tralia, then worked at Oregon State University and the Australian Wine Research Institute before becoming chair at Fresno State. Kennedy is most widely recognized for his research on grape and wine tannin chemistry, and he has published numerous articles about tannins and proanthocyanidins. He is a past president of the American Society for Enology and Viticulture and is on the board of directors for the California Raisin Marketing Board and San Joaquin Valley Winegrowers Association. He will be among the speakers at the Wines & Vines Oak Conference on Feb. 11 in Napa, Calif. A COnVersAtIOn WItH James Kennedy Professor discusses tannin research and his department at California State University, Fresno By Laurie Daniel The structure of oak-derived tannins is different than grape-based tannins and interacts differently with oxygen. James Kennedy specializes in tannin chemistry.