Naked Vine One-Hitter -- One More Story from 1000 Stories

The Sweet Partner in Crime was traveling right before Thanksgiving. She was scheduled to fly back to our house in the woods late afternoon of the holiday, so we weren’t going to be whipping up our usual nontraditional Turkey Day feed.

Instead, to celebrate the SPinC’s return, I tried my hand at dry-aging steaks at home. As her flight headed for home, into the sous vide bath went these ribeyes. They turned out wonderfully – full of incredibly rich flavors – but I was glad that we had a spare fridge to “age” the steaks in. The process is not without a distinct odor. Had these steaks alongside some roasted brussel sprouts and mushrooms, which just makes for a good meal.

Anyway, the day before, I got a visit from the wine fairy, courtesy of the good folks at Colangelo after the publication of my 1000 Stories wine piece – 1000 Stories 2016 “Batch Blue” Carignan.

As you remember, 1000 Stories does some of the barrel aging of their wines in old bourbon barrels, which imparts some smoke and vanilla to the wine profile. They’re known for your typical California varietals like Zinfandel and Cabernet, as well as blends.

But Carignan? That I didn’t see coming.

Carignan is an interesting choice for a single varietal wine, largely because it’s rarely used for such a purpose outside of the Languedoc region of France and particular regions of Spain. The most common use for Carignan is as a blending grape. Here in the U.S., Carignan is grown largely in the Central Coast regions of California. The most prevalent use for the varietal domestically is – no kidding – jug wine. As such, I was curious to see what this wine, designed by 1000 Stories’ winemaker Bob Blue and his son, had to share.

So, let’s get the immediate out of the way first – this bottle is most assuredly not plonky jug juice. The grapes are sourced from a couple of plots in Mendocino County, which boasts a cooler climate than the Central Coast, so my expectation was for less in-your-face fruit and a little more subtlety and balance. My expectations were correct.

While pretty straightforward, I thought it was a much “rounder” experience than the other 1000 Stories wines I’d tried. The nose struck a decent balance of vanilla and cherry, with a little bit of a smoky note – all of which were echoed on the body, along with some blackberries and dark chocolate. There’s a toasty undertone to it all, but the smoky flavors were much more subdued than in their other wines. The finish was softly fruity, smoky, and altogether pleasant. Even though the SPinC is still shying away from bigger wines, she was able to enjoy this one.

Since the timing of this bottle was so fortuitous, we cracked it with our dry-aged dinner. To be honest, it worked well. I thought this wine was nicely balanced alongside the deep flavors of the steak. There was enough tannin in the mix to keep it interesting, and the fruit held up against the range of flavors.

I certainly enjoyed this wine as much as the other 1000 Stories offerings – and in certain contexts, would probably be my top choice amidst their selections. Like the other wines in this particular portfolio, you’ll find it from $18-20.


P.S. Happy Birthday, Sis!

1000 (More) Stories – More adventures in Bourbon Barrelling

Last year, I wrote about 1000 Stories Wines – California reds which derive a particular character from being aged in used bourbon barrels.

If you’re interested in more of the backstory about these wines, I welcome you to bounce over here for a refresher about these fairly interesting bottles.

Short version: Many wines are aged in barrels of one type or another. You’ll see wines aged in French, American, or Hungarian oak most commonly. The interior of these casks are usually “toasted” to some degree. The more toasting, the stronger the oaky flavor. Bourbon barrels, taller and thinner than most wine casks, as well as more heavily toasted, could potentially add a boatload of flavor. Even after being used, a barrel can still impart distinct flavors to whatever’s stored inside it.

Finding old bourbon barrels sounds like a difficult step, but, according to the legal rules governing distillation in the U.S., Bourbon can only be aged in a new cask. After that, the barrels have long been sold to distillers making whiskeys and other spirits – and sometimes beer makers. The recent “Bourbon Boom” has, naturally, added a great number of additional barrels to the market, and some winemakers have jumped at the opportunity to ride that particular wave of popularity.

1000 Stories produced the first California Zinfandel aged in bourbon barrels, which I tried when I wrote the initial article, alongside their proprietary “Gold Rush Red” blend. Fast forward a year and a month, and the Wine Fairy delivered another pair of 1000 Stories wines to my doorstep. No Zinfandel this year, but I got to try this year’s model: 1000 Stories 2017 Gold Rush Red, as well as the 1000 Stories 2017 “Prospectors’ Proof” Cabernet Sauvignon.

(Bonus points to their marketing department for proper use of the trailing apostrophe!)

One change I can report between last year’s vintage and this – Bob Blue, the winemaker at 1000 Stories, has dialed back the alcohol content somewhat. The Gold Rush Red now clocks in at lower than last year’s 15% alcohol, while the Cabernet sits at 14.5%. Don’t think this means that these wines are trending towards delicate. Nosiree. This pair of reds pack a considerable punch. Both should be opened for at least 30-45 minutes before you get down to drinking.

The Gold Rush, although slightly toned down, resonates with my comment from last year: “It’s a big ol’ bomb of intense dark fruits, especially plums and dark cherries.” My notes from now give it some plums and vanilla on the nose, with a body of ripe dark fruit, loads of tannin and graphite. The finish is very smoky and tannic. Will need an accompaniment of strong cheeses or grilled meats to really reach its best.

The Prospectors’ Proof gives me leather, vanilla, and a bit of an herbal note on the nose. The body was somewhat lighter than I expected after last year’s Zin. Some more restraint to be found here. Body’s got that classic cherry and currant flavor of Cabernet, along with a fair amount of smoke. The finish is charcoalish, with a note of green pepper that I wouldn’t have expected outside of Bordeaux. The wine’s a bit shy – the flavors fade in and out as it gets air over time until it finds its footing. Once it does, it’d be nice next to steak, mushrooms, or other grilled goodnesses.

1000 Stories has also added a bourbon barrel-aged Chardonnay and Carignan to their portfolio. I'll be curious to see how those would end up. 

These wines retail for $17-20. If you’re interested in a bourbon-tinged vanilla and smoke flavor with your wine this winter, it’d be worth giving these a go.

Bourbon Barrel-Aged Wine -- Does the Wood Make it Good?

Fall, finally! Cooler nights, bigger foods, darker drinks.

Once the weather starts to turn away from heat, I tend to turn my sights back towards both bigger red wines and brown liquors. Outside of Derby, bourbon’s largely a winter drink for me. Red wine’s year round, of course, but my red rack’s generally filled with lighter stuff during the summertime.

What happens, though, when a winemaker decides to put wine and bourbon together?

Over the last four or five years, I’ve seen a few wines marketed as “bourbon barrel aged” popping up. Many red wines are barrel-aged. What’s the difference with aging wine in a bourbon barrel?

Barrel aging is an important stage in the life cycle of many wines, both red and white. When a wine spends time in a barrel, the juice seeps into the wood, extracting chemical compounds that mix with and change the flavor of the wine within. For white wines like Chardonnay, the “oaky” flavor often comes from contact with wood in barrels. For reds, barrel aging adds a depth of flavor and boosts the tannin level.

Reading the description of many wines – you’ll see wines aged in French, American, or Hungarian oak most commonly. The interior of these casks are usually “toasted” to some degree. The more toasting, the stronger the oaky flavor. Bourbon barrels, taller and thinner than most wine casks, as well as more heavily toasted, could potentially add a boatload of flavor. Even after being used, a barrel can still impart distinct flavors to whatever’s stored inside it.

Finding old bourbon barrels sounds like a difficult step, but, according to the legal rules governing distillation in the U.S., Bourbon can only be aged in a new cask. After that, the barrels have long been sold to distillers making whiskeys and other spirits – and sometimes beer makers. The recent “Bourbon Boom” has, naturally, added a great number of additional barrels to the market, and some winemakers have jumped at the opportunity to ride that particular wave of popularity.

I recently had the chance to try two bourbon barrel aged wines: 1000 Stories 2016 California Bourbon Barrel Aged Zinfandel and 1000 Stories 2016 Gold Rush Red (both $16-20). The former is a blend of Zinfandel from Lodi and Paso Robles, with a touch of Petit Sirah juice sourced from Lake County. The latter is a field blend largely of Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, and Zinfandel.

The winemaker, Bob Blue, states that it was rare to see wine aged in French Oak when he started learning his craft, and most American oak barrels were used for whiskey. Over the years, using these barrels has become more commonplace – and now Blue uses used bourbon barrels as a flavoring method.

In any case, both wines start out in standard American and French Oak barrels before being racked into used white oak Bourbon barrels. After a period of months, the wine is finished in older (some apparently 13 years old) Bourbon barrels.

Both these wines can use a little taming. The Zinfandel clocks in at 15.7% ABV, while the Gold Rush comes in at around 15%. If you pop and pour, you’re going to get a snootful of alcohol before you really get to any of the flavors. I’d suggest, at the very least, you either decant thoroughly or let it have at least half-an-hour’s worth of air after you crack it.

In both cases, the toasted vanilla and crème brulee flavors that are common in bourbon do find their way into the wine. The nose of the Zin has a bit of that smokiness in the background, on top of dark fruit and some fairly interesting notes of spice like nutmeg. On the palate, this is a big, honking glass of vanilla, spice, smoke, and considerable alcohol. Once it opens up, plum and sage flavors pop their heads out of the mix and the alcohol recedes a bit. The finish is long, dry, and smoky – the various oak instillings lending pepper and a tooth-staining level of tannin.

The Gold Rush red is more straightforward. It’s a big ol’ bomb of intense dark fruits, especially plums and dark cherries. There’s a spicy, leathery backbone to this wine – along with a long, tannic finish. I found it to be much more straightforward than the Zin. Either wine would be workable with some sort of barbecued meat, big cheeses, or dark chocolate.

To be honest, though – I don’t see how much of a difference, other than a slightly sharper oak flavor, that the bourbon barrels actually make with this wine over standard barrel aging. It’s an interesting marketing idea, especially if you’re interested in conversation with whiskey aficionados or Kentucky fans. But keep an eye on the price. These wines both seem a little more pricey than they should be, considering the competition. See what you think.

Rigged for Success – Fairborn’s Flat Rock Distillery rides Ingenuity to Gold in National Distilling Competition

“Our major problem was that we weren’t making enough whiskey!”

– Shawn Measel, Flat Rock Distillery

“It’s so funny. We walk by the still every day, shake our heads, and say, ‘The damned thing actually works!’”

Shawn Measel, one of the three proprietors of Fairborn’s Flat Rock Distillery, was breaking down the origin of various pieces and parts of Flat Rock’s homebuilt distiller.

“These parts were duct work from a machine built in Stuttgart, Germany. Those were water pipes from a factory. Those were steam pipes.”

Brad Measel, Shawn’s older brother, chimed in, “Our still’s not one of the big, beautiful copper stills like the one they’re putting in at Party Source [aka NewRiff Distillery in Bellevue, KY]. Those are like $500,000. Ours comes from leftover pieces and parts from our old job sites.”

The Measel brothers, along with their former office manager, James Bagford, turned a floorful of repurposed rigging equipment into Flat Rock’s incubator for StillWrights, their now-available line of distilled spirits. The StillWrights lineup includes a straight bourbon, flavored and unflavored moonshines, and – soon – silver, spiced, and bourbon barrel-aged rums.

Four of StillWrights’ moonshines recently took awards in the 2014 American Distilling Institute  competition for independently produced spirits. Their key lime pie moonshine took gold and was named “Best in Class.”

Less than a decade ago, however, rather than winning medals, the three were hauling metal.

From Millwright to Stillwright

“Shawn and I are both millwrights,” said Brad. “My father was a millwright. My grandfather was a millwright.”

“Millwrights are industrial machinery movers,” explained Shawn, patiently, after I demonstrated my lack of knowledge about what a millwright was. “The origin is back in windmills, grist mills, sawmills. If you wanted one built, a millwright got everything in place and assembled the machinery. [Millwrights] evolved into what they are today during the Industrial Revolution. Today, say you’re putting together a tool and die shop – we’re the ones who will set up your punch press. We make sure factory lines run the way they should so the workers can do their thing.”

Shawn and Brad’s father, Don Measel, opened Pyramid Riggers in the early 1980’s. Shawn, Brad, and their other two brothers worked there. It’s a tense business, they said. Millwrights’ busy seasons are during factory shutdowns – 4^th of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas breaks, and the like – and they are required to hit very strict deadlines. Pyramid generally kept a core staff of 20-25 people on payroll, but that number would swell to 75 at peak times. 

“When the [heavy industry] started leaving Dayton…we had a lot of work for a few years – ‘05, ‘06, ‘07 – as plants were moving out of town. But we could see our niche going away, so we knew we had to come up with something else. We started to do some research on what works well in an economic downturn and alcohol production just kept coming up.”

“Landscaping also came up as recession resistant,” added Shawn, “but that was just too much work! So we started studying the microdistillery business. We wanted something we were passionate about that we could do with a minimum of employees and with less stress.”

As the plan emerged for the distillery, named for the family farm near Medway, they brought in their cousin, James Bagford, who worked at Pyramid as the office manager and compliance expert. “James was really good with regulations, and when you start distilling, there are all sorts of issues with the state and federal government. We needed James, because he’s good at that!”

James added, “It’s really different from homebrewing and home winemaking. With those, you go to the store, pick up a kit, and you’re good to go. You can have decades of practice before you open up a larger winemaking operation, but with distilling, you can’t do that. Legally, you can’t even practice, so you have to make sure you have everything in line before you start.”

Setting up the line

  

“As we were closing down the rigging business…we just kept our eyes open as we were going through our projects,” said Brad. “If there were ever any stainless steel or copper pipework or anything we thought might work, we just kept it! We laid out a whole building floor of stuff over a year.”

Brad Measel shows off the top
of Flat Rock's homemade still.

Shawn added, “We sketched it all out on paper and did a couple of designs. We’d start in and go, ‘Hey! We’ve got a new piece of pipe. Could we use this?’ and we’d make a few changes.” They first built an “experimental” 27 gallon still, which led to the construction of their 300 gallon main still, based on a design adapted from one they saw Louisville’s Vendome Copper & Brass Works.

On most distillery tours, guides spend a great deal of time talking about how the design and shape of a still yields a unique flavor. When I asked how that applied to the unconventional design of the Flat Rock still, Shawn laughed, noting that physics is much more important than aesthetics. “That whole mystique, the shape and all that -- it’s a lot of P.T. Barnum, “’Hey! Watch this hand!’ while my other hand is doing something else” stuff. I mean, if you dropped half a million on a still, you gotta say, ‘Our stuff is better because our still is shaped like an onion.’”

As they gathered the pieces for their operation and gradually converted their buildings from manufacturing to distilling, the Flat Rock team became students of the technical process from grain to barrel. “We’re largely self-taught,” said Brad, “I tell you, on the Internet, man, you can get on there and learn just about anything you want.”

In addition to powerful Google-Fu skills, they relied on their millwright experience to create an efficient system for production in quantity. “Shawn and I had been in so many industrial plants – auto plants, the Lima army tank plant, big bakeries – we’ve seen a lot of production, so we could say, ‘The flow should go like this, and we need racks for this, and these things should go here.’ We wanted to make it as easy on ourselves as we could.”

They also believe the attention to detail required in their millwright work translated neatly to distilling. With the batch size they produce, they’re able to keep tabs on everything from how “happy” the fermenting yeast is to precisely maintaining the proper temperatures during the mashing and distilling processes, since problems at any stage can create impurities in the final product.

“The big distilleries can’t do that in a million-gallon run,” mused Shawn. “Everything goes into their barrels – guts, feathers, and all. That’s why a lot of them age their whiskey for so long – they’ve got to mellow out those defects – aldehydes and acetones and other nasty stuff. We don’t have that problem.

“And our still kinda talks to us. In the still there’s a copper dome. As the vapor hits the dome and condenses, boils, and recondenses, it jiggles. And when we hear that thing rattling away like a jazz drummer going to town on a high hat, it’s letting us know that we need to really keep an eye on the temperature,” Shawn added, throwing in sound effects and air drums for good measure.

Throwing the switch

Flat Rock fired up the still for the first time in 2010. They sunk the savings from building the still into the purchase of barrels to age their final product. They originally planned to call their spirits “Flat Rock,” but a trademark dispute with a Canadian winery led to the coining of “StillWrights.”

“Our first plan was to make our bourbon, because we knew that had to age,” explained Brad. “Then we wanted to make our ‘Chateau Cash Flow,’ something we could get on the shelves and make money with. We thought that would be rum, but we struggled to come up with a rum that we liked…We decided to look for something else, and we tried making moonshine. We were on the second batch and we were like, ‘Wow. We should have done this earlier!’”

Moonshine, the spirit they describe as “American as Revolution, Apple Pie, and Badassery,” does not have a precise legal definition. It’s classified by the federal government, according to James, as a “distilled spirit specialty,” meaning there are no particular criteria for production and aging, which is different than rum, bourbon, and other distillates, which have very specific guidelines. StillWrights unflavored moonshine clocks in at 104.7 proof, while their flavored versions are 70 proof.

Putting the barrels down. (photo courtesy Dayton City Paper)

The bourbon caused some real trepidation for the team. “We’re six months in, and I start worrying,” Brad recalled, “What if this stuff isn’t any good? There’s our family business down the tubes. So we called in a consultant who worked with some big distilleries and he said that we might make a couple of minor tweaks to the process, but we were spot on.” Shawn excitedly interjected, “He told us that our major problem was that we weren’t making enough whiskey!”

The first batch of StillWrights 90 proof bourbon is aged in 15 gallon casks for two years. When that bourbon is all out of barrel, they’ll empty their 25 gallon barrels, which will have been aged for three. Eventually, they’ll move on to their four-year 53 gallon barrels, which will be their standard moving forward. Some of the used barrels are being used to age their rums, which should be released in July and August.

StillWrights’ unique bottle design, which neatly complements their “Coiled S” logo, has an international flavor. A French company has a design competition every year for college seniors and they mass produce the winning bottle. Flat Rock’s design company happened upon the bottle just as it was released, immediately saw the connection, and snapped it up.

The Goods

After giving me a tour of the facility, the Flat Rock team took me to their recently-completed tasting room for a sampling. Brad served as bartender, deftly pouring half-ounce tastes, his right forearm wrapped in a tattoo of tally marks – 31 of them, one for each year he’s been married. (“He initially did Roman numerals,” cracked Shawn, “He didn’t think it through.”)

The unflavored moonshine is dangerously easy to drink. It has a very even corn flavor with very little afterburn. The flavored moonshines were unique to my palate. I’m used to flavored liquors having one-note tastes, but these, produced in conjunction with Mother Murphy’s flavoring company, had multiple layers of flavor. The “Best in Show” key lime had complex flavors of graham cracker and meringue alongside the tart lime. The “peach cobbler” had savory notes of toasted oat to go along with the peach. The apple pie tasted like…well…apple pie. They also feature a margarita and a cinnamon version.

The bourbon is quite enjoyable. It has an undertone of a scotch-like peat, and a little splash of water brings out considerable floral and vanilla notes to go along with a backbone of newly harvested grain. The flavors are all very distinct and, overall, it’s a very clean bourbon, with some maple syrup, corn, and cognac flavors at the end.

They say that their lineup will change as the market changes. “Moonshines are a hit right now,” Brad said, “but they might end up as a fad. We want to be agile enough to make whatever’s hot. But there will always be demand for rum and bourbon.” They indicated that they might eventually try branching into gin, which Shawn enjoys. “When I drink gin, my face hurts from smiling so much.”

“Our two brothers kind of think we’re crazy,” said Brad, pouring a little more bourbon for us as we watched a storm roll in. “Dad passed in ’07. I hope he’d be proud of us. Give us a couple of years. When we’re making some money, I know he’ll be proud of us. Until then, he’d be like “Get your ass movin’!”

StillWrights bourbon retails for $35 per bottle; the moonshines for $25. StillWrights can be purchased at the distillery’s tasting room -- as well as Arrow Wine South, Belmont Party Supply, Air City Wine, the Lebanon Kroger and Vandalia Carryout.

Flat Rock Distillery is located at 5380 Intrastate Drive, Fairborn. Tours, which include tastings of all their products, are $10 and can be arranged at http://flatrockspirits.com/product/distillery-tour/ -- by calling (937) 879-4447, or by emailing tours@flatrockspirits.com.

[This story appears in November 11,2014 issue of the Dayton City Paper.]