Issue link: http://winesandvines.uberflip.com/i/867389
72 WINES&VINES September 2017 WINEMAKING WINE EAST - B E C O PA D - Y E A S T & E N Z Y M E S - C R U S H PA D E Q U I P M E N T - S T E R I L E F I LT R AT I O N - W I N E R Y H O S E - O A K A LT E R N AT I V E S EASTERN WINE LABS Serving the Analytical needs of East Coast Wineries WWW.EASTERNWINELABS.COM Ph 609-859-4302 Cell 609-668-2854 chemist@easternwinelabs.com AOAC Member we want to make an upper Mid- west version of Bordeaux." Mike Drash also is trying to push the envelope at Chankaska Creek in Kasota, Minn., and al- ready has garnered some Best in Show awards at competitions. He uses a combination of 100% French oak puncheons from Taransaud and the regular-size barrels with Minnesota staves and French oak heads from Radoux. He's also mixing it up with the winery's three Marquettes, and even letting the source influence his approach. At the estate vine- yard, "We're on a hillside with re- ally sandy soils," he said, while Lone Oak Tree Vineyard in Amboy, Minn., "is completely flat with black soil. The Marquette from there has more of a Syrah-like feel: a meatiness, smokiness. So I did almost all American oak (for 16 months on the 2015) on that. The two vineyards are farmed very similarly and picked the same day but are very different." Drash uses all French oak, about 70% new, on the Estate Marquette. "With American oak, traditionally the term dill comes up a lot. With Marquette, French oak gives it more earth tones: mushroom, truffles." He uses only 20% new oak for nine months on his Minnesota blend, "a fresher, more youthful wine." Chankaska Creek's Marquette Rosé spends six months in a 50-50 mix of neutral French and Ameri- can barrels, and the sparkling Marquette gets about six months in older French oak. Drash came to the winery in 2014 after working in Sonoma and Napa for 17 years, so he has had a lot of experience with oak— enough to know how much he doesn't know. "My first year here, everybody said Marquette can't take new oak" he said, "and I thought, 'It's only been around four or five years.' In Napa they've been doing it 60 years, and they're still trying to figure out the oak." Bill Ward has been covering wine for the better part of a century (the 21 st ). He re- tired as the wine columnist for the Min- neapolis Star Tribune in 2014 and now devotes his time to freelance wine and food enterprises from blogs and books to hosting wine dinners and providing customized wine country itineraries. He lives in Hopkins, Minn., and has a wine website: decant-this.com. Peter Hemstad, now co-owner and COO of Saint Croix Winery, was the Univer- sity of Minnesota grape breeder who released the Marquette variety in 2006.