Barrel tastings
Wine clubs sometimes hold barrel tastings — usually in the spring or summer, long before the vineyard is busy
with the harvest. What makes a barrel tasting special is that the wines all come
straight from the barrel. You may get
the opportunity to buy discounted wine futures. If you don’t happen to know the
wine-tasting etiquette, here are a couple of basic rules:
• Don’t wear perfume or cologne — it interferes
with the wine’s aroma.
• Act like you were at an upscale
cocktail party, not a bar.
Barrel tastings at a
vineyard near St. Helena
Anderson’s
Conn Valley Vineyards in Napa Valley, a 10-minute drive from downtown St.
Helena, holds tastings in its barrel caves, where current releases and library
wines may be sampled and visitors can learn all about the process of making and
storing the wine. Tastings are $65, but one tasting fee can be waived by
joining their wine club or making a $100 purchase.
One
wine you might want to try at an Anderson’s Conn Valley Vineyards barrel
tasting is the Right Bank. Their first Right Bank, the dark ruby 2008, has an
aroma rich with mocha, cedar, blackberries, black pepper and plums. The year
2008 was one of those years where the weather places great stress on the
grapevines, reducing yield but producing wines of singular quality — in this
case, a red wine with a rich, full palate of mocha, espresso and black fruit
integrated with sweet tannins. It also has an excellent texture and a silky
finish that lingers on the palate for several minutes. This wine is expected to
improve for twelve to fifteen years and be good for ten more. Anderson’s Conn
Valley Vineyards doesn’t issue a Right Bank every year. Try their latest Right
Bank today.
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