Find Next Year’s Best Wine at a Barrel Tasting

Barrel tasting with a wine club

Barrel tastings in St. Helena, CA

Many wine clubs hold barrel tastings, which are an opportunity for wine connoisseurs to try the most recent vintages and guess how good the wine will be in years to come. At these tastings, you can also meet connoisseurs and learn from them. You may also be able to buy wine futures at a discount, if you find something that’s likely to be particularly good in a few years.

How wine is born and grows older

It may help to understand the process of wine fermentation and aging. The fermentation itself takes place during the first two to three weeks, and happens in two stages. First, while the vessel is open to the air, the yeast multiplies as it converts sugar to alcohol. This takes three to five days. In the second stage, which takes one to two weeks, the vessel is closed and the yeast devotes itself to turning sugar into alcohol. All this should take place at a temperature of between 70 and 75 degrees Fahrenheit, to allow the yeast to thrive while preventing unpleasant byproducts. The perfect temperature is 72 degrees.

Once it’s inside the barrel, the aging begins. 90 percent of wine is made to be drunk within a year, but those left in the barrel for a few years include many of the best wines. In the case of red wine, the wine turns a browner, more brick-like color with age. The aroma becomes less fresh and fruity. It loses its acidity, and the bitterness of phenols is replaced by a more mellow flavor. The oak of the barrels secretes tannins and vanillin into the wine, adding to its complexity.

Barrel tastings near St. Helena

Anderson’s Conn Valley Vineyards in Napa Valley, a 10-minute drive from downtown St. Helena, holds barrel tastings in its barrel caves, where current releases and library wines may be sampled. Tastings are $65, but one tasting fee can be waived by joining their wine club or making a $100 purchase.

Try a recent Estate Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, a complex wine grown from numerous clonal varieties of the Cabernet Sauvignon grape. An older Estate Reserve Cab, 2007, was formed by a cold and dry early and middle year, with a sudden burst of heat around Labor Day that helped the grapes produce more sugars. The result was a dark ruby red wine with an aroma of dark fruit, dark chocolate, Bing cherries, roses, licorice and cigar box. Its flavor is balanced between fruit, oak and acid, with sweet tannins and hints of cedar, coffee and chocolate cake.

Anderson’s Conn Valley Vineyards is a 40-acre estate just south of Howell Mountain, and has been owned and operated by the Anderson family since 1983. Anderson’s wines are sold online and in five locations in Napa Valley, and many other locations nationwide.

Time Running out for a Barrel Tasting

Barrel tastings in St. Helena, CAWine club barrel tastings

Wine clubs like the Anderson’s Conn Valley Vineyards wine club sometimes hold barrel tastings — usually in the spring or summer, when the weather is good and long before the vineyard is busy with this year’s harvest. There aren’t many more weeks left of summer this year, so if you want to go to one, start planning now.

The difference between a St. Helena barrel tasting and other wine tastings is that the wines all come straight from the barrel. Here you can try last year’s Cab at its earliest stage, long before it’s ready for the bottle. Barrel tastings also sometimes give you the opportunity to buy discounted wine futures — that is, to agree to buy a certain number of bottles as soon as the wine in question has been bottled, in exchange for saving money on the eventual purchase price.

If you don’t happen to know the wine-tasting etiquette, you can’t go too far wrong by following these basic rules:

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. Anderson’s Conn Valley Vineyards produces excellent wines at prices you can afford. The vineyard is a 40-acre estate just south of Howell Mountain, and has been owned and operated by the Anderson family since 1983. Anderson’s wines are sold online and in five locations in Napa Valley, and many other locations nationwide.

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, chocolate, espresso, ripe raspberries, black fruit and crushed rocks 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.