Barrel Tasting Weekend in Livermore Valley
Livermore’s annual Barrel Tasting Weekend begins tomorrow. This annual event supports the Livermore Valley Winegrowers Association, and all of the money raised by ticket purchases, less promotional expenses, is used to promote awareness of Livermore Wine Country.
We share a fantasy that this weekend gives a behind the scenes look at how winemakers spend their days. Lights dim as the cellar master carefully draws a dram of precious nectar and transfers it gently to a crystal glass. The romance of wine, the timeless tradition of the barrel room made accessible this one weekend of the year.
How I wish this was true, but this carefully engineered image is as far from reality as Disneyland’s Matterhorn is from a Swiss village. The fantasy is designed to entertain, not educate. In the winery, barrel tasting is infrequent, since most winemakers prefer to leave their wines undisturbed and protected from spoilage during aging. Only at racking, when the barrel is emptied, are samples taken for analysis, the purpose of which is to see if the wine is developing properly.
At Occasio, tasting from the barrels begins only after a year. We draw wine at racking, and transfer it to sample bottles labeled with the variety, vineyard, clone, and barrel. Rather than pouring them into our crystal stemware, we transfer them to opaque (black) ISO tasting glasses and randomize the order. Absent the distraction of color, we are blinded to all but the taste, mouth feel, and aroma of the wine. Only when we are satisfied with our understanding of the tactile and aromatic profiles of the wine will we analyze the color.
Last week, we tasted through our Cabernet Sauvignons from our three vineyards, examining vineyard, clonal, and barrel aspects of the wines. Over a period of several tastings, we selected the base cabernet blends for our different collections. This process will be repeated for each of our other varieties, culminating in setting the blends later in April. It is a rewarding time in the winery, but it is work. Once the blends are set, there is no going back. This finality to a harvest that began two years earlier creates a tension that lingers long after the bottling. There is little romance in this serious business of tasting and blending.
But this weekend, don’t feel as if you have to identify differences in our two clones of Ghielmetti Vineyard Cabernet. Remember, these are unfinished wines, and will have little resemblance to the final bottling. Just enjoy yourselves and feel fortunate that you live in one of the world’s finest winegrowing regions.
