How do I judge a young wine in barrel?

WINE TALK
1

A friend who belongs to the Nickel & Nickel wine club has invited me to join him this weekend for a barrel tasting of a dozen 2013 Napa cabernets. it sounds like a fun event, and an early chance to evaluate the vintage. But how should I go about evaluating half-finished wine? Should I expect harsher tannins? Reduction? Spritziness from MLF? Will it taste more or less oaky than the final product?

2

If you’re tasting with a wine club then the wines are “finished” in the sense that they’ve undergone malo and are likely close to bottling. (depending on the extent of your barrel tasting). My experience is that wine in barrel can actually be more generous and expressive in many ways.

Depending on the style, they may be even less tannic than in bottle because of the expressiveness of fruit characteristics (which shifts the frame of reference). In that sense, you’ll get a lot of primary characteristics and a few other dominating qualities from the variety or site. They may not seem as “complex” in that they have a multiplicity of characteristics, but they are more obvious - at least from my experience.

Fair warning though - you may not want to do conventional wine tastings ever again after barrel tastings.

3

+1

And didn’t you see the post last week about Far Niente/N&N love? Regardless, I would go to the tasting.

4

Thanks for the great advice. And yes - I chuckled quite a bit reading those posts, knowing that I would be attending this event soon. Given how widely the winery draws from various parts of Napa Valley, and assuming that their winemaking style is consistent, I am hoping to learn something of how Stags Leap differs from Rutherford differs from Oakville, etc. We’ll see…

5

Since each wine is raised the same and 100% varietal, really no better way to see what AVA’s deliver in terms of quality and profiles.

6

Easy answer. You let RMP or Laube tell you.

7

Just give all the samples 96-100 pts and call 2013 the vintage of the century… :wink:

8

'13s are gonna be way young. For me, unless I know the finished wines I would have a difficult time picking out what will be my favorite several years from now. Doesn’t mean you won’t have a favorite among the barrels. Doesn’t mean it won’t be fun. Just cautioning about plunking down hundreds of dollars on futures.

9

Don’t judge it, just taste it. Treat it like a snapshot, or a rough draft since bbl tasting is more about wondering where a puzzle piece fits. Tremendous exercise you’ll want to repeat.

10

It should be an awesome time for sure. You will find grapiness and rough unfinished edges. The wines you sample should by no means have spritiziness or noticeably harsh tannins. I think N&N do vineyard bottlings so you should find differences across the board. Don’t evaluate like you would a bottled wine with a year or more in bottle but have fun with it comparing it to the same designates you may have had in your life since you are in the ‘Club’, that should be easy. Prepare by opening a few recent vintages with friends, heck, plan a dinner around 4 bottles and invite 3 friends. One more bit of advice, keep the credit card in the car.[cheers.gif]

11

Thanks for the advice. Since the event will likely be pretty fancy, and it isn’t costing me a penny, I expect to buy a bottle or two minimum as thanks. But I will endeavor to keep it under control. My friend the member has scores of N&N from previous vintages (maybe hundreds - I don’t know). I will encourage him to host a “horizontal” for scientific purposes later this year…

12

This is great advice.

I’m sure there are people that can predict a wine by barrel samples but I’ve realized I’m not one of them. If I write a TN on a barrel sample now I’m very neutral in my judgement and stick to high level descriptors.

Part of the issue for me is I have a tough time cutting through rough tannins. I would expect this tasting to scrape his tongue clean!

13

Thanks again for the advice. It was a great event, with knowledgeable staff pouring the wines and some really tasty food. The 2013 wines were very tannic, but tasty as well. I left my notes in my friend’s car but in general the Oakville and St Helena vineyards were our favorites - I ordered a couple bottles of the Hayne (St Helena) and the Sori Bricco (Diamond Mountain) wines.

14

The latest issue of Decanter magazine has an article by Steve Spurrier on tasting wine in barrel. It compliments other articles in the issue with notes on 2013 Bordeaux

15

There are so many things that can happen to a particular barrel during its evolution and prior to final blending that makes me wonder why anyone, including a critic, would attach much beyond what Todd coherently suggests - exploring ‘a piece of the puzzle’, when tasting. I treat them as a scouting report looking at the most basic of characteristics.

Glad you had a good time. Chances are the finished wine will be a far cry from the building blocks you experienced.