I was out at one of our facilities, (sounds impressive doesn't it, but in truth it just some space rented in a non-descript temperature controlled building), last week tasting some of the 09' vintage reds and thinking about the blending plan.  Yes, Virginia we do have a plan of how we expect each wine to taste and blending plays an important role. For many wineries this would imply mostly varietal blending or mixing together grape varietals. For example, adding just the right amount of Cab Franc to Merlot for a hint of spice. At Naked our blending is centered on aging vessels like oak barrels and stainless steel. We do varietal blend for some, Diva Sangiovese, Naked Merlot and Penetration Cab.....

Ok, back to my story.  Barbera is one of our recent additions to the Naked Winery line up and hence, we haven't settled on what it's supposed to taste like. In 07' we used 50% new American barrels and the rest were neutral. Everybody, seemed to like it but by time we released the 07 vintage, we already had the 08' aging in 25% new American and the rest were neutral. Ok, we said we'll go back to 50/50 for the 09' vintage. Getting the 08' in the bottle, "Where's the oak?" was the common theme running in my brain. So, everything is perfect right, just use 50% new American and 50% neutral forever more and call it a day right? Here is where the well-made plans of man meet with what the heck?

Back to barrel tasting. The 09' Barbera in New American tastes really really good but, not like the 07 used too. Why? We used different types of barrels this time around. They were new American oak but the toast profile was Medium Plus (more time over the charcoal fire) versus Medium. Everyone knows you can't use Medium plus on Barbera because it will overpower the wine. It seems that some Medium plus barrels that were intended exclusively for Orgasmic Cabernet were used for the Barbera. So to review, we used the wrong barrels and the wine tasted really really good. So now what do we do?

Well here's the plan. The 09' Barbera in new Medium plus barrels is not going to be blended with the 09' Barbera in neutral oak, and we will have two 09' Barberas. The new great tasting mistake will be called Orgasmic. The rest of the Barbera in neutral oak tastes great as well, but let's just say it is not Orgasmic and may be released under the Naked brand.

Footnote: What about the Cab? We make a lot of Cabernet and we use Medium on the Naked Cab regularly. In terms of Orgasmic Cab we were running experiments this year with barrels (regular medium plus, medium plus profile 11 and medium plus profile 39). We'll just add medium to the mix when we taste before final blending for bottling. It's another whole story but profile 11 may be the way to go for the ultimate cab but then we could try a few heavy toast barrels as well.