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70 WINES&VINES September 2017 T o oak or not to oak? That is the question facing many Mar- quette producers as the promis- ing cold-climate grape comes of age. While vintners initially relied heavily on traditional oak treatments for red wine in general and hy- brids in particular, many of them have found that less is more. Hybrid barrels, oak staves and oak spirals have become much more widely utilized. With few exceptions, winemakers across the northern tier of states have moved toward letting the grape, first released in 2006, express its own particular style and attributes. Even one of the grape's progenitors has curbed his oak program for Marquette. "We have been evolving at Saint Croix (Vineyards in Stillwater, Minn.)," said Peter Hemstad, who helped develop the grape at the University of Minnesota and has been making Marquette longer than anyone. "We tradition- ally have made it in a heavy style, pretty ex- tracted and pretty heavily oaked in barrels for more than a year. In recent years, we decided to dial it back a little. "Even if you make it with no oak, it's an appealing wine with complexity. I think oak complements it, and I also think the market- place now appreciates a little less oak than we made it with originally," he added. After using American oak for years, Hems- tad and his winemaker, Martin Polognioli, now use a mix of new, one-year-old and two-year- old hybrid barrels with French heads and American staves. They're sourced from two Napa-based outfits—primarily World Cooper- age with a few from Seguin Moreau. At Lincoln Peak Vineyard in New Haven, Vt., Chris Granstrom has followed a similar path but moved even further away from new oak. He started off using new American oak barrels. "If you're a new winery, you get a lot of new barrels," he said with a chuckle. He now employs mostly "a French-American hybrid barrel with a few years on it," with about 15% new hybrid barrels from World Cooperage. At February's Cold Climate Grape Confer- ence, Granstrom told a gathering, "I'm not sure that the right amount of oak for Marquette is zero, but it's pretty close to zero." In a recent phone interview, he elaborated: "The only rea- son I can say that is that I've tasted a lot of Marquette, and a lot of it is over-oaked. "Marquette has a lot of flavor, and a spicy thing going on. But for whatever reason, all that uniqueness gets squelched (by new oak), and it tastes like just another oaky red wine," he said. "I think it's especially prone to too much American oak, because the vanilla really dominates Marquette." Whatever Granstrom is doing is working: Lincoln Peak's Marquettes have won a raft of gold medals at competitions as well as a Best in Show for Red Wines award for its 2013 Marquette at the 2015 International Cold Climate Wine Competition. Other oak sources Many other wineries are using barrels sparingly, Evolving Styles for Marquette Wines Does this cold-climate wine need oak? If yes, how much? By Bill Ward KEY POINTS When the cold-climate grape Marquette was re- leased by the University of Minnesota in 2006, grapegrowers knew it would survive Minnesota's chilly winters. Winemakers have had to do more experimentation to learn how to manage the va- riety during production. Initially, many winemakers from Minnesota to Vermont put their Marquette wines in new bar- rels, often made from American oak, to produce an oaky, dry red wine in a heavier style. One of Marquette's virtues is that it has a complex flavor profile. Today winemakers are using less new oak in an attempt to allow the variety to ex- press itself in different styles by employing hybrid barrels with French heads and American staves, oak spirals and, in some cases, no oak at all. Chris Granstrom of Lincoln Peak Vineyard empties Marquette from a barrel at the Vermont winery.