We started soaking the samples from Innerstave and Xtraoak on January 29th in Vodka. After about a week we decided that we need more “flavor” so we doubled the amount of toasted oak in each sample bottle. Last night we had our friends, John and Chris Mason from EMTU vineyard over for dinner and we did a smell/taste test to determine which oak adjunct to use. The winner was the Xoaker balls from Xtraoak in Medium Plus toast. The flavor from both vendors in the “Plus” toast was much nicer than the medium…a spicy vanilla flavor. We will pick some of this up on Thursday and get it into the barrel when we do our next sulfur run.