Paso Robles, Calif. -- Moderating the final session at Hospice du Rhône on Saturday, billed as "the world's largest international celebration of Rhône variety wines," event co-founder John Alban got weekend participants personally involved in the high-level barrel trials and vine row-spacing experiments taking place on-site at some of the Central Coast's most prestigious producers of Rhône-style wines.

More than 200 people gathered for "Beyond the Yellow Brick Road," an informational session about viticultural and enological experiments at Stolpman Vineyards, Piedrasassi and Saxum Vineyards. Sashi Moorman of Stolpman discussed the outcome of his vineyard density studies while offering crowd members a chance to gauge the results for themselves.

Moorman said he found it poetic to be presenting his findings along with Justin Smith, since it was a visit with Smith that first spurred his changes at Stolpman. According to Moorman, Stolpman had been using about 10 gallons of water per vine per week in the vineyard, but after talking with Smith he told the vineyard manager to turn the water off.

"Density and variation were the things needed," Moorman said. He visited the Rhône region of France and evaluated vine density decisions there, eventually deciding on four categories: low-, medium-, high- and super high-density plantings.

• Low-density, 10 feet by 5 feet: This spacing allows for more than 860 vines per acre. Yields averaged out to about 1.1 tons/acre, or fruit weight of 2.5 pounds/vine.

Quoting a consultant who visited Stolpman Vineyards, Moorman said of this setup, "I feel like I can land an airplane in these rows."

• Medium-density, 10 feet by 2.5 feet: The yield per vine decreased using this spacing strategy, while overall yields increased. The final figures for yields were 1.5 tons/acre and an average weight of 1.8 pounds/vine.
• High-density, 6 feet by 2.5 feet: At this spacing, the vineyard produced about 1.9 tons/acre, or 1.3 pounds/vine.
• Super-high-density, 3 feet by 2.5 feet: Yields dropped dramatically in this scenario, with just .5 tons/acre of yields and an average of .16 pounds/vine.

Tasting the wines made from these blocks along with the audience, Moorman said he believes the low-density plantings created a bright and pretty wine without much complexity. Layers of complexity built with each increase in density, but the tightness of super-high density planting made it difficult to fit machinery such as sprayers down the vineyard rows.

Moorman said the 2008 vintage is the culmination of eight years of experimentation outside the cellar. Ultimately, he chose to pursue high-density planting in the future, balancing features like yields, complexity and the realities of farming.

"When we turned the water off at Stolpman, two years later the size of the leaves, the size of the clusters, the size of the berries--everything has changed to the point where we have to leave two clusters instead of one to get the same yield," Moorman said.

Barrel trials

Next, Justin Smith of Saxum Vineyards discussed and offered samples from the results of barrel trials he's conducted on blends from the James Berry Vineyard. For the first test, the audience received a 2005 blend of 70% Syrah, 20% Mourvèdre and 10% Grenache. In one sample, the blend was aged in new oak for 20 months, while another batch was left in oak for 43 months. A show of hands revealed that the first sample had more fans, with a majority of the crowd saying that 43 months in oak had dulled the essence of the fruit a bit. The decision wasn't unanimous, however, and neither were results from the following two experiments.

For the 2006 blend from the Bone Rock section of James Berry Vineyard, Smith used 76% Syrah, 18% Mourvèdre and 6% Grenache. The wines were left on their lees in barrels from a French cooperage for either 19 months or 31 months, but this time sentiment shifted. Asking for a show of hands, Smith determined the audience preferred the wine left in barrel for 31 months, concluding that the other sample could have benefitted from a bit more time in oak.

Eventually, Smith took his 2007 blend of 41% Grenache, 31% Syrah and 21% Mourvèdre and divided it in two. Half of the blend aged in a neutral puncheon, while the other sat in a new 228L barrel. Taking a sip, Alban immediately declared that the neutral puncheon-fermented blend represented everything that's right about Rhône varieties. The second sample was great on its own, he said, but a wine this good was better off "naked," without the addition of oak.