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A Special Winery Tasting

August 9, 2013 •

Last Sat­ur­day we joined our wine tast­ing group for bar­rel tast­ing at Brian Carter Cel­lars in Wood­inville. This was real treat, as wine maker and co-owner Brian Carter hosted our tour and spent sev­eral hours with us.

brian-carter-malbec-barrel

Unlike other winer­ies that focus on sin­gle-source vine­yards or vari­etals, Brian Carter Cel­lars prides itself on arti­sanal blended wines, cre­ated in the Euro­pean tra­di­tion.

As he siphoned small sam­ples from bar­rels  con­tain­ing last year’s vin­tage, the wine­maker shared his phi­los­o­phy for blend­ing wines. He is inspired by blended wines from Bor­deaux, the Rhone region, Italy and the Iber­ian penin­sula.

He framed our bar­rel sam­ples event as an expe­ri­en­tial les­son. He planned the sequence of bar­rel sam­ples to ensure we could detect in our nose or mouth what he looks for before decid­ing what will be blended into the fin­ished prod­uct, and in what pro­por­tion.

Char­ac­ter­is­tics such as:

    • Struc­ture and com­plex­ity
    • Round­ness or sub­tlety in the mid-palate
    • Veg­e­tal, herbal or spicy notes
    • Fruity qual­i­ties
    • Over­all bal­ance
    • Degree of toast and other fla­vor ele­ments imparted by the bar­rel itself
    • The impact of using largely “native yeasts”

Our tim­ing was for­tu­itous, as our tast­ing occurred just a few days before the wine­maker will be mak­ing key deci­sions to shape his 2012 vin­tage blend­ing “recipes.” Sip­ping small sam­ples from a dozen bar­rels give us a sneak pre­view how he was per­ceiv­ing the com­po­nent wines him­self.

brian-carter-hosts-tasting

    After­wards we moved from the cel­lar itself to their tast­ing room a mile or so away. There Brian Carter hosted a tast­ing of many of the win­ery’s cur­rent releases. We were able to see how well each wine paired with our pic­nic lunch. They all did quite well.
    My per­sonal favorites (based on lunchtime tast­ing): Byzance, Tut­torosso and Trente­naire. My hus­band loved the Opu­lento, although this port-style dessert wine was not well suited to tast­ing dur­ing the heat of a hot sum­mer’s day.

About This Blog

Reflec­tions on life, travel, books, and yoga. Think­ing out loud about the pur­suit of mind­ful­ness and well-being.

Learn­ing how to recover from the loss of a beloved spouse, and then to find a trans­for­ma­tive path for­ward.

About Me

Semi-retired marketing exec, transitioning from a career in high tech. Now "managed" by two Tonkinese cats. Missing travel and friends on the West Coast. Avid reader and foodie. Staying active with long walks, biking, kayaking and yoga.

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