Roll Out the Barrels 2019

Another year, another round of our favorite Still Waters event, Roll Out the Barrels! This year, we had over 200 wine club members and their guests gather in the barrel room and taste over 30 barrels of wine! Our guests tasted through barrels of 2016 Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec, Merlot, Primitivo, Syrah, and Zinfandel. We also threw in some 2018 Viognier, for good measure! It was so much fun having our extended Still Waters family under one roof to enjoy this unique event.

2016 saw us starting to emerge from the drought years. While we didn’t get as much rain as we had hoped, we came away with about 6 inches for our growing year (at the height of the drought, we had 4 inches of rain total).  Growing conditions were varied and that was a big influence of the flavor profiles in the 2016 vintage. In the last half of September, most days were in the 90’s to well over 100 degrees. That means earlier varieties like Syrah, Merlot, Malbec, and Primitivo were ready well before their usual October pick days. We picked at various intervals throughout the month with fluctuating temperatures and conditions, producing distinctive and tasty flavors. Throughout October, the temperatures were cooler than normal, which meant our later harvest varietals like Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc enjoyed a longer hang time. This developed a more fruit forward composition of flavors versus previous years.

In short, 2016 marked an improvement in the amount of rain we had and general growing conditions. We look forward to a great vintage with diverse, delicious flavors and we hope you love them as much as we do!

Click on the link below to check out the winning barrels! Did your favorites make the cut?

ROTB 2019 wines