I dont think its new thing as Scott dicussed this in the spring a bit.
“We don’t show our wines for review until they’re bottled. I’ve never been a fan of submitting barrel samples - is it a composite sample, is it one barrel, are there any final modifications, fining, filtration, etc that need to occur, how does a few extra months of barrel aging or concrete egg aging integrate with the wine? When we submit a wine to the critic, it’s the exact same wine from bottle that our customers will be drinking.”