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Wine OR Wine & Food

Tags:   Wine   Educational  

The goal of Barrel Tasting is to introduce people to wines still in the barrel, help them learn about wine, get a better understanding of what they taste, and to offer partnerships in winemaking.

A Barrel Tasting is a great opportunity to join a wine group now by getting in on a terrific barrel of wine, and then coming back to the winery to bottle the wine with your new found wine lovers once it has fully matured.

You will taste the wine as it goes through its barrel development from a young wine to one that is ready to be bottled and enjoyed.

There are a number of stages that the wines go through while in the barrel. The first stage is usually the finishing of fermentation, which takes about 4 to 6 weeks. The second stage of red wines is malolactic fermentation, which changes the tart-tasting malic acid into the softer-tasting lactic acid. A wine undergoing malolactic conversion will be cloudy due to the presence of bacteria, may be fizzy, and may have a curious smell that can be reminiscent of buttered popcorn. The next stage is racking, where the dead yeast and solids from the barrel (called the Lees) are removed and the barrel is topped off.

When you attend different barrel tastings you will start to get an understanding of the various stages wine goes through in the barrel and how the wine-master is able to know when the wine is ready to bottle.

Come out to Make Wine With Us to barrel taste all your favorite wines and taste some new ones to add to your list of favorites!