Oh boy A technical question. These are a class of tannins found in the oak we use for barrels/aging. They contribute virtually no flavor or smell, but contribute a considerable amount of mouthfeel and structure to a wine. Unfortunately, they are thoroughly destroyed during the process of toasting the wood. When you purchase barrels, you can specify that you want them with or without toasted heads. Many of the traditional Burgundy barrels come that way. I prefer to order most of our barrels that way, but with heavy toast levels on the staves (the round body). It may take a bit longer for the oak flavors to resolve and integrate, but you also get a considerable punch in structure and mouthfeel. A great way to make a thin wine “bigger”. The French also produce these 3 year air dried untoasted oak beans that you can toss in during the fermentation. They get pressed out along with the skins and seeds once the ferment is over, but the result is darker stabilized color, and bigger, rougher tannins…good for aging. A bizzillion wineries use them (many of the ultra premium producers), but for some reason think that what they are doing needs to be a big secret. We are technophiles. Love to try all the new techniques. At the end of the day, nothing still compares to great grapes and old world winemaking, but when your vineyards encompass several appellations ( SLH, Arroyo Seco, Paso Robles), you need every tool available to you to account for the disparate conditions and challenges.
Great info! Is that class of tannin unique to French oak or is it also found in other oak sources?
You obviously pay a lot of attention to your cooperage. I noticed another new concept to me in the write-ups on the main page. “Neutral Oak.” Is that a characteristic that is achieved through processing/construction, careful sourcing of the raw materials, or is that just a pleasant was of saying, “used several times, so we ain’t gettin’ much of anything from the barrels.”
Don’t alot of fairs have Double Gold too.
I’ve always been a fan of the idea that only one person gets a gold, another gets a silver, another gets a bronze. heh.
Aye! And it’s a pirate-gypsy-harper that I shall be the last two weekends of this month at the Ojai Pirate Faire.
'Twas 95 in the shade today. I had to resort to pouring some of the Chateau Souverain Syrah Port over shaved ice.
– T
The list of wines looks interesting, but the price is nothing soecial. Having checked out winesearcher.com, in the stae of N.J., the going price is the same as the WOOT price including shipping. Oh well.
still triple digits in parts of the country till near the end of this month. (based off of annual trends.)
I’ll have to say I’m loving the massive amount of involvement right off the bat. Is this the first time we’ve had 3 reps answering questions from a winery? Thanks for the clarification btw, was getting confused here as well.
I was thinking of the wagon, from when I was a little 'un
I was thinkin’ of the BB gun…
Come on find out how to send to Indiana…
I have purchased a case of the Hahn Meritage for the past 3 years and have served it a dinner parties. It is very good and I have never had a complaint.
The Meritage consistently wins awards at the Monterey wine festival which is how I heard about it in the first place. I am on the east coast so word had to travel pretty far. Believe the Monterey festival is pretty reliable since it is a completely blind tasting.
I’m in for a spin. Price seems good for the 4 bottles, the Meritage retails for about $20 by me with a full case going for $16 - $18 a bottle. Look forward to tasting the other offereings. Thanks Hahn/Smith Hook folks.
Hmmmmmmm. An owner, a president and a vintner who would rather lose contracts, contacts and buckos than release a sub par wine. A promise from said same parties, who have passed the integrity benchmark in my eyes, that they aim for a higher than typical quality to price ratio. A new wine word (Ellagitannins) to drop casually at tasting events. An appellation that is currently under-represented in my wine credenza. A guy willing to use the word ‘bizzillion’ and open to admitting he learned a few things about wine the hard way.
Dang, that fall I just took off the fence is going to leave a mark.
Fairs generally follow the same formula for giving out awards. A double gold almost always means the wine was awarded a gold medal by all of the panelists. There are some competitions where after we got the medals back I had to call and find out what they meant. They were calling the Platinum what we think of as gold, their gold would normally have been silver, and their class called simply award was bronze level.
They couldn’t really just give one gold, etc for a couple of reasons. First is, until the wines are competing head-to-head for best of class and best of show, the wines are really competing on their own. The wines aren’t ranked in the first round against anyone else, just on how good the judge feels the wine is. The second reason is a bit more material, if wineries knew they only had a small shot at winning anything, even with a good wine, they would be less likely to sign up and pay the entrance fees. Therefore the competitions wouldn’t be able to support themselves. So we end of with the system that we have now.
Hello all, I’m Marissa and I represent these wines in the northern Virginia, DC, Maryland, and Delaware areas. Just wanted to let you know who I am and who will be answering your questions!
Big operation. And HONEST about being a big operation. This is a refreshing change from Biggies that try to appear small. Honesty is very good because this bunch of wooters are really good about picking up on mendacity. (Insert name of favorite BCW here!)
Not too shockingly, I was telling all of my colleagues about the upcoming Woot and they were loving the site’s sense of humor and wanted to get on board. We’re trying to not overwhelm you all with sheer numbers of people, but it’s a fun board to be on. I think this is the last person we have around, but if you need more, we’ve got 'em 
Now that you are all bored at your desks at work and looking for something to do, ask away!
Hi, Marissa here, and I rep these wines in Virginia. If anyone is interested then you can contact me in regards to upcoming wine tastings for these wines.
i can get these locally. though not at the great price for 4.
i only drink the Pinot regularly but the rest are okay.
pass this week.