Eric Aafedt ~ Barrel Aging, Quality and 30 Years at Bogle

Jody Bogle is joined by Eric Aafedt, Vice President of Winemaking and the 2024 Winemaker of the Year, to talk about his 30-years at Bogle Family Wine Collection.  Eric discusses the art and science of barrel aging, revealing how this method sets Bogle’s wines apart from that of the competition, and provides insights into the meticulous techniques behind crafting Bogle's signature wines, while highlighting the balance between tradition and innovation. 

To learn more about Bogle Family Wine Collection visit boglewinery.com.

Transcript

00:00 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
Barrel-aging wine is not just about getting oak flavor. That's a great little plus. It adds some nice vanilla, some spice, some really great qualities that the oak can help accentuate the wine. But really it's like a magic vessel. It does so many things that you can't replicate in a tank. 

00:25 - Jody Bogle (Host)
Just a show note. Since we recorded this episode, Eric has been announced as Winemaker of the Year by Wine Enthusiast Magazine. We are so excited for Eric, but not surprised. Obviously, after his 30 years here at Bogle, we know this honor is well deserved. 

Welcome to the Bogle Story. I'm Jody Bogle and I'm happy to be sipping with you today. We have Vice President of Winemaking, Eric Aafedt. Thanks for coming in today, eric. 

00:36 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
Thank you, jody, great to see you again. 

00:39 - Jody Bogle (Host)
So let's talk about your start in the wine business. 

00:44 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
Kind of an interesting start. I grew up in the Livermore Valley, which is the home of Concannon Vineyard, wente Vineyards and a lot of you know, dozens and dozens of small wineries, so that's where I worked as a kid. 

00:54
You know, at 14 years old and 15, we're moving irrigation pipe and picking weeds and eventually in the cellar and then, you know, peeling labels, bottling all that stuff. Until you know, until after high school, I went to work for Concannon Vineyard and there they were very kind to me and I decided I better get off to college and get a degree. They enabled me to work there as much as I could, whenever I wanted, and I was off to the city college there and then eventually to Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo. 

01:25 - Jody Bogle (Host)
And you got your degree in. 

01:27 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
My degree is in chemistry At the time Cal Poly had a fermentation science program and a small viticulture program, but nothing like it is now. 

01:35 - Jody Bogle (Host)
No, nothing like it is now. 

01:36 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
But it is kind of nice that my alma mater is a winemaking school now. 

01:40 - Jody Bogle (Host)
So after you graduated, where did you go from there? 

01:44 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
Back to Kunkanen. I graduated on Friday and I was back to work at Kunkanen on Monday. 

01:48 - Jody Bogle (Host)
Sounds like a winery. Yeah, it does. 

01:51 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
They were really good. To me it was fantastic. 

01:53 - Jody Bogle (Host)
So how did you make your way to Bogle? 

01:54 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
It's interesting as Kunkanen was going through some transition and they had a consulting winemaker there named Jed Steele. He was a pretty hot shot winemaker at the time. He was one of the original winemakers for Kendall Jackson. He had a friend named Chris Smith who needed help at a winery named Bogle Winery. 

02:15 - Jody Bogle (Host)
In little Clarksburg, california, that's right. 

02:17 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
So Chris and I met and we hit it off real well and I became the assistant winemaker. 

02:22 - Jody Bogle (Host)
Chris speaks to us on another episode about our grape sourcing and our Clarksburg vineyards, but he was the first person you met at Bogle. 

02:30 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
Yes, absolutely yeah. Yeah, I remember meeting him at the winery and it's a lot different then than it is now. 

02:38 - Jody Bogle (Host)
Well, 30 years, things are bound to be different. 

02:41 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
Well, they have to be. 

02:42 - Jody Bogle (Host)
Eric, you've been with us for 30 years, since 1994. That's really remarkable. And you knew Warren, ryan and I, our parents. You knew Chris and Patty. 

02:51 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
Yeah. 

02:52 - Jody Bogle (Host)
Tell us. You know, I know that people always love to hear stories. I love to hear stories about my parents, but you know what were they? What was it like working for them at a winery that was really just kind of getting off the ground? 

03:02 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
It was really interesting it was. It was kind of cute. Your dad treated Chris and myself kind of like stepchildren, you know, because the agriculture was the king. You know the grape growing was big and the winery was pretty small. You know, it was kind of like oh you little winemaker guys. 

03:18 - Jody Bogle (Host)
Aren't you guys cute? Yeah, aren't you guys cute, making your wine and all. 

03:25 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
I think he would be really surprised to see what's happening now. But I think one of my favorite stories about your dad is he's a pretty genuine dude, you know, and he's a man's man. And I remember I think I just started and the guys from Winebow were out in New York and they wanted to meet your dad. 

03:39
It's dark, of course, we're all working like 12 hours a day, so they're waiting in the tiny cellar, our little bottling line, for your dad to come and all of a sudden you hear the tractor coming out of the vineyard. Right, and he just pulls right up in front of the winery and jumps off his tractor and he pats his chest and his pants and all this dust plumes off, you know. And he walks in and shakes hands with these guys and they're just like wow, I was too. I was like, well, you couldn't have staged that better. 

04:04 - Jody Bogle (Host)
And he wasn't. It wasn't staged, he made quite the entrance. Oh, that's so funny, oh my goodness. But here. 

04:09 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
He comes off of a tractor, you know eight o'clock at night or whatever it was in the dark. 

04:13 - Jody Bogle (Host)
So in those early years of the winery, tell us what it was like. 

04:25 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
The winery was at us, what that was like working there. You know we were on a pretty tight budget. It was a shoestring budget. It felt like so. It was me and Chris and Julio and maybe one other full-time person. We did everything, did all the lab work, all the data entry, all the wine tasting making. You know, it was just it was. If something broke, well, we, the maintenance team, fixed it, which was us. You know so there was no maintenance team, there was just us making that wine there. 

04:50 - Jody Bogle (Host)
How many cases of wine were we making when you started? 

04:53 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
I think it was about 40,000, 40,000 or 50,000, which is a pretty decent size for that little tiny building. You had the one liter program, which was significant. Yes, White Zinfandel was being made. So I mean Bogle was not puny by any means compared to what we are now. It was, but it's a mid-sized winery, I guess. 

05:11 - Jody Bogle (Host)
We gained quite a head of steam there. We talked a little bit about the Wall Street Journal mentions and how that changed the trajectory of the winery in the late 90s. 

05:23 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
I think that did you know, when they had three best value Chardonnay for under $20 or $15. And we were eight People would walk into that tasting room. Imagine this kind of date yourself. They wouldn't walk in with their phone and say, look, I need this. They would walk in with a clipping of the paper, say where do I get this wine? 

05:44 - Jody Bogle (Host)
And I was behind the bar pouring for them on the weekends, and we'd give them the Chardonnay and the Merlot as well, so well. So one of the things that I think it'd be great for you to share with everyone is to talk about our extensive barrel program. 

05:59 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
Yeah, you know, not many people know this story of how it started. It was 28,. Five years ago I was trying to get your mom to get us into some barrels and you know they're really expensive. 

06:09 - Jody Bogle (Host)
How are we making wine before that? 

06:11 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
We're mostly stainless steel. We have a few barrels, you know, but it was all stainless and at that time we were growing so fast and the regulations for us to build out there we weren't allowed to. So we kind of started making wine at other places and I found an opportunity to age our Merlot in a neutral barrel for basically the same price as stainless. So they had thousands of barrels available. When I got to show your mom the difference between the stainless version and the barreled version, you know, after a year of aging she was all in, she's okay, and then that's when the barrel program started. 

06:45
Because of the quality or because, just because pure up the quality of how much it changed the wine. 

06:50 - Jody Bogle (Host)
So talk about what time in a barrel does for a wine. I've heard you say it before. 

06:56 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
Yeah, but you really, you believe wholeheartedly in the benefit of barrel aging, you know almost everybody does, and if you look at most of the wineries with a reputation close to ours and longevity, you'll see they also have extensive barrel programs. So barrel aging wine is not just about getting oak flavor. That's a great little plus. It adds some nice vanilla, some spice, some really great qualities that the oak can help accentuate the wine. But really it's like a magic vessel. It does so many things that you can't replicate in a tank. One of them, and probably the most important and this is a sacrifice that's made by the company is when a wine's aged in a barrel red wines in particular. They will evaporate clear, colorless and flavorless water and alcohol at about a rate of 2% a year. Wow. So you see, yeah, a huge concentration in the color, intensity and flavor of your red wine. 

07:53 - Jody Bogle (Host)
But that takes 2% away from the volume. 

07:55 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
Right, well, yeah, and to put that into perspective, of our barrel room, which is about 98,000 barrels, oh, I was going to ask you, yeah 98,000 barrels, which is 6 million gallons. We lose 120,000 gallons of wine a year 120,000 gallons of wine a year evaporate. 

08:13 - Jody Bogle (Host)
Evaporates, yes, to the benefit of what's left behind, right? 

08:16 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
So it's a sacrifice and it's a commitment if you're going to commit to quality winemaking. Another really important thing that happens in a barrel, that evaporation happens because the stave woods breathe a little bit and it's called micro-oxygenation. So when that oxygenation happens, the tannins that were once astringent and somewhat bitter when they're young they polymerize and those tannins get bigger and they coat your mouth differently and it creates a softer mouthfeel. 

08:45 - Jody Bogle (Host)
So bigger tannins but softer tannins. 

08:47 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
Yes, okay, it's the way the protein dissolves the tannin and it makes it softer. 

08:51 - Jody Bogle (Host)
This is where the art and the science come together. Right yeah, In winemaking. 

08:55 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
Yeah, it was probably accidental. Hundreds of years ago that's the only vessel they had to age wine. But it's a really important factor as far as complexing the wine and giving it a little softer, more approachable feel. And then, thirdly, there's a lot of organic acids in wine and that same oxidation helps to esterify organic acids, meaning it gives like a more fruit-forward profile in the nose and the bouquet. 

09:22 - Jody Bogle (Host)
And these are all things you're trying to achieve with Bogle wines across the range. Right, You're looking for wines that are varietally correct, very fruit-forward, very approachable, with good structure. 

09:33 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
Yeah. 

09:34 - Jody Bogle (Host)
So it sounds like that's why we have 96,000 barrels. 

09:36 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
Yeah, we do, and you know a lot of people like some people think they're disposable but they are still storage Right. It just takes a lot more labor and a lot more space. Yes, and they're very expensive, you know, but sustainably wise. We do use our barrels for about seven years and then we'll sell them to. Right now they're all going to Brown Spirits. A lot of Irish and Scotch whiskey Brokers are buying those and sending them overseas. They'll reshave them and toast them again and fill them up with whiskey. 

10:08 - Jody Bogle (Host)
That's very sustainable. What's the percentage between American and French oak and do you have a preference? Does it depend? Talk to us about using the different kinds of oak. 

10:18 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
It's really cool. I mean French oak. After a while, when you taste them side by side a lot, there's a big difference. French oak has about 10 times the amount of tannin inside of its wood than American oak. So when you toast it you get a lot more caramelized wood sugars that create this kind of really viscous middle mouth feel. 

10:39
Almost like dripping, like oil, to be intense. You know, sure, exaggerate and a really deep kind of confectionery mocha, sometimes a little spicy oak American oak doesn't have as much tannin but it does have a lot of oak impact and you can see some whiskey lactones coming from there. Vanilla- Sure. And just another great flavor, but different. 

11:04 - Jody Bogle (Host)
It doesn't impact the mouthfeel as much. So how do you decide what wines get French oak and what wines get American oak? 

11:09 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
You know that's a great question. We barrel ferment half of our Chardonnay in brand new American oak barrels. What I've learned over time is if we ferment in brand new French oak barrels that tannin profile it's a little much. It starts to add a little bit too much structure to a Chardonnay. 

11:26
So American oak is really a great vessel for fermenting brand new barrels of American oak in Chardonnay Chardonnay is great for barrel fermentation and then the Cabernet will fill those barrels next and that will deliver even you know great flavor from there. And Zinfandel will fill those American those barrels next, and then we'll deliver even great flavor from there, and Zinfandel we'll fill those American oak barrels next and you don't do anything in between, you don't refire them, you don't do anything, no, they get washed out. 

11:49 - Jody Bogle (Host)
The wine's drained, washed out, and then the new wine goes in, filled, yeah, at the same time. 

11:54 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
If you saw our barrel line, which you have seen, we drop them down in there and they go down and get very gently racked out emptied of Chardonnay, get a nice rinse, come around, get filled with Cabernet and get put back. 

12:05 - Jody Bogle (Host)
So the traditional Bogle family vineyard Chardonnay, as you said, 50% is barrel fermented and aged in new American oak, the other 50% is in stainless steel. 

12:15 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
Yeah. 

12:16 - Jody Bogle (Host)
The oak portion gets hand-stirred once a month. What does that do to the wine? 

12:23 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up, because in barrel fermenting Chardonnay is not again just about getting oak flavor from the barrel. It's really cool. I mean it's the vanilla and you know all of the clove and spice and it adds a really nice dimension to the wine. But the vessel is the perfect size. So when you barrel ferment, when those yeast have done their job and they expire, they settle to the bottom of the barrel and it's a pretty compact settling. So when wine is aged on its yeast lees they call this aged sur lees in French the cell walls break apart from those dead yeast cells and they release a tolisate which gives off a silky mouthfeel. 

13:03 - Jody Bogle (Host)
So that's what gives it that rich, creamy mouthfeel. Okay. 

13:07 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
But the wine has to be exposed to those yeast cells. 

13:10 - Jody Bogle (Host)
So you can only do that by stirring them. And that's batonnage. 

13:14 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
That's batonnage, because what you put inside the barrel to stir, it and get all those yeast cells up in suspension. Looks like a baton, yes, and so you can't. It's hard, almost impossible, to do that in a stainless steel tank, because there's no way to sweep the bottom of a big giant tank and get it in. 

13:29 - Jody Bogle (Host)
So we're stirring our traditional Bogle family vineyard Chardonnay once a month. We also stir our Phantom and our Reserve Chardonnays multiple times a month, twice a month. 

13:40 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
Twice a month yeah. 

13:41 - Jody Bogle (Host)
And this is all done by hand. Yes, how many barrels are we talking about per? 

13:45 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
month, then About 12,000. 

13:47 - Jody Bogle (Host)
That's incredible. 

13:49 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
Yes, a few guys can get through there in a few days Wow. 

13:53 - Jody Bogle (Host)
Wow, that's really remarkable and I think it really speaks to the commitment to quality that our winemaking team has. 

13:59 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
I wanted to add to the. You know the main line gets the American oak and then for Phantom Juggernaut and 20 Acres to some degree we use French oak and we have used about half new and then the second year fill on. The French oak still delivers a nice French oak quality but little less structure from the barrel and that delivers that creme brulee confectionery kind of aromatic. 

14:26 - Jody Bogle (Host)
What's your favorite varietal to produce? I've heard you say before that you really enjoy making Chardonnay. Why is that? It is? 

14:34 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
fun because Chardonnay stands up to a lot of manipulation from the winemaker. So you can really have your inputs there, and we do in all of our wines. You know, me and Dana, we have, what kind of yeast we use, how long we're going to ferment on skins, the temperature, but once you kind of dial all those things in they're pretty steady. For red wine making you can choose your oak profile, but for Chardonnay you've got you know what kind of oak are we going to ferment? In what toast level will we have the oak? How much malolactic fermentation will we have in the Chardonnay? You know how much stainless steel, how much Lee's stirring, all of those things. It's much more. 

15:08 - Jody Bogle (Host)
They're all variables. 

15:09 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
They're all variables. 

15:11 - Jody Bogle (Host)
How often are you playing around with those variables? We do it all the time. 

15:14 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
So you know Dana might have spoke to how we're always making the single lot fermentations and due to the barrel program we can actually age all of our wines from each different vineyard. So we're always evaluating wines. Every time we taste Chardonnay we'll have 45 different barrel fermented lots and we'll go through them and taste them and kind of get to compare the different toast levels of the American oak and the toast levels and grain types of French oak and compare them all the time. 

15:40 - Jody Bogle (Host)
Where do we get our barrels? 

15:42 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
For the most part we have an agreement and a longstanding relationship with Independence Dave Company, which is World Cooperage in their barrel programs, and they supply us probably with about 90% of our barrels, and the American oak barrels come from Missouri. The wood is grown in Missouri Very sustainable as well, if you ever get a chance to get in our forest and look at it. 

16:05 - Jody Bogle (Host)
I'd love to go take a peek. 

16:07 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
They claim to in the last 50 years there's more board foot of American oak in their forest than there was 50 years ago. Because of the regenerative and replanting, selective timbering too, Okay, they want to go in and make sure that the trees that remain have the greatest amount of sunlight and the best growing conditions. So they'll take the trees you know within 10 feet of that. And then our other, our French oak, comes from France, obviously, and that is also an independent stave company. They have many stave mills and forests and coopers in France. 

16:40
A lot of people ask you asked earlier French or American? We're about 20% French oak now due to the Juggernaut program. So Juggernaut, cabernet, pinot Noir and Chardonnay use French oak exclusively, which is again a huge commitment for a $20 bottle of wine. 

16:59
Nobody does that. Nobody, Especially French oak. Then you might ask, like why does French oak cost so much? American oak can be just sawed into perfect little staves and then seasoned in the yard for two to three years, Whereas French oak the lenticels kind of go out of the wood so it has to be split. They put a wedge in the board and it splits it naturally and they can only use. You know, they only use 30 to 40% of the tree. 

17:28 - Jody Bogle (Host)
Oh wow, Because of that, the way it's made and a lot more labor intensive, it sounds like too. Yeah, yeah, so that's kind of the major part of almost double the cost. 

17:37 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
Wow, double the cost, Of course also it's from very far away, but that's the main reason. 

17:43 - Jody Bogle (Host)
So it sounds like the barrels that we're using. We're using them for seven years. It's a very sustainable process. Do you ever try to play around and do different things with the different wines, for example, if you have a unique lot that comes in in the single vineyard winemaking, and how do you? Do you ever say this? This field usually goes to French oak, but this time we're going to put an American oak and yeah, we always, for instance uh Monson vineyard probably our best grower you know, highest quality. 

18:19 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
So we'll always take that and target it for french oak, but maybe 20 american as well, just to see how it, how it reforms, possibly go into a little bit into our reverence program which is, uh, american oak dominated oftentimes. But we will have different grain types. Age of wood meaning how long it's seasoned in the forest types of wood French versus American different toasting levels, which is how long the barrel's toasted, for you have to toast the barrel to caramelize those wood sugars and remove all the astringency. If you didn't toast the barrel with an open flame it would be very green and bitter. 

18:58 - Jody Bogle (Host)
So it sounds like all of those things contribute to the characteristics in every different lot of wine. Yes, that's pretty remarkable. And to bring them all together and blend them right before bottling. 

19:10 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
And that's the single vineyard. Wine making and vinification gives us extreme versatility and it can't be done without the barrel program, because we certainly can't buy, you know, 10,000 different size tanks? 

19:23 - Jody Bogle (Host)
No. So, eric, you've been with us for 30 years. What do you see the future holding for Bogle? Oh, your crystal ball, my crystal ball. 

19:33 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
You know we're if you look at us and you know our kind of the Bogle family vineyard label is kind of a survivor right now in that category. So I see in our future that, due to us being enabled to make wine really differently than everybody else in that price category, that we will survive. 

19:56
And you know I see us prospering and creating different varieties to go into the Bogle family vineyard name, the Bogle wine. Perhaps a reserve program someday that could be nationally distributed, but I do see that you know we'll always be able to continue to make the best quality wine that people in the wine business drink every day. 

20:20 - Jody Bogle (Host)
Well, you and your team are certainly doing that 90 point scores, 91s, 92s, fantastic scores across the board, just consistently year over year. And I know that the barrel program has a lot to do with that, but you and your team do as well. 

20:33 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
So many kudos to you guys including you. 

20:38 - Jody Bogle (Host)
All right, I just like to drink it, all right. So your last question for you Eric it's the weekend wine, tunes and food. What are you? What are you eating, what are you drinking? What are you listening to? 

20:50 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
At my house where we would typically have in the background, just like kind of slow music, you know, for friends to enjoy. What's really fun is the, uh, the brazilian music. I find it's. I'm coming at a loss. 

21:03 - Jody Bogle (Host)
You know the girl from empanipa oh, okay, that that type of style, yeah, yeah, just in the background, you know and a lot of grilling. 

21:11 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
I've got a great outdoor kitchen, so I love to grill for my friends, and then a lot of, a lot of great red wine with that. 

21:16 - Jody Bogle (Host)
What what's your favorite right now? Oh well, I know I'm enjoying the 22 Juggernaut. The Cabernet. 

21:22 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
Yeah, juggernaut Cabernet is showing fantastic. My wife loves the Chardonnay. Most of our friends and family typically gravitate towards the red wines, but you can never—Juggernaut cab's great, but you can never go wrong with our petit syrah. That's just such a great kind of meat and grill. 

21:40 - Jody Bogle (Host)
Yeah our heritage varietal. Yeah, it has stood the test of time, that's for sure. So well, thank you, eric, it was good to talk with you. 

21:48 - Eric Aafedt (Guest)
Well, thank you, bye. 

21:57 - Jody Bogle (Host)
Thank you for listening to the Bogle Story. We are happy to have you be a part of it.