The Results are In – Roll Out the Barrels 2016

What a perfect day! The sun was shining and the wine was flowing with 37 barrels to taste and five different varieties, we could have not asked for a better event. Every year we look forward to Roll Out the Barrels. Not only do we get to taste so much delicious wine, we also get to see over 150 of our wonderful wine club members all in one day!

This year we tasted through the 2012 vintage. 2012 was the beginning of our three-year drought.  Ultimately, we only received four inches of precipitation for the whole year.  Fortunately, a permanent crop like grape vines, takes multiple years before the vines begin to show stress.  One unusual advantage to drought conditions is low susceptibility to the extreme cold snaps that usually follow storms.  The actual amount of frost days in 2012 was ONE, and that low was only 34 degrees.  So unlike 2011, with over ten inches of rain where we experienced a fifty percent crop loss due to frost damage, 2012 had a great yield of about 220 tons of fruit.  This is slightly above our average crop.

Therefore, the vines had very uniformed canopies and we were able to ripen the fruit to optimum flavors and stay on our somewhat normal picking schedule.  The wines are more fruitful than what we saw in 2011.  In our opinion, 2012 was a very good, uneventful year EXCEPT for it was the beginning of the widespread drought in the Paso Robles growing region and throughout the state of California.

What you should have experienced tasting through the barrels are fairly fruity, full flavored red wines.  Most of these wines originated in 100 percent new French oak.  They should lend themselves to complex, bold flavors with great potential for successful aging.

The following chart shows where each barrel tasted on Saturday ranked overall and what the wine in those barrels will be bottled as. Thank you to all who attended, we look forward to enjoying a bottle of the wine you helped create!