March is Barrel Tasting Month in Sonoma Wine Country

Over 30 days of wine tasting and events in America's premier wine, spa and coastal destination

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. October 14, 2008

SONOMA COUNTY, CA, March 2, 2007. Get the wine before the bottle in Sonoma Wine Country this March, during "Barrel Tasting Month" which offers wine tasters a chance to try new wines before they are aged, and meet the people who make them. More than 150 wineries will participate over the entire month of March.

Wineries throughout Sonoma County will open their cellar doors for a chance to sample upcoming vintages. Wines are typically aged in barrels for several months to allow the wines to age and the flavors to mature and integrate into a fully developed wine. Barrel tasting allows wine drinkers to experience young, unfinished wines before they are aged, blended, bottled and released to the public.

"Sonoma County Barrel Tasting Month is a terrific winery experience for visitors," says Honore Comfort, executive director of Sonoma County Vintners. "It's a unique opportunity to discover the art of winemaking, talk with the winemakers, and taste wine straight from the barrel. No other wine region has dedicated an entire month to barrel tasting."

Tasting from the barrel allows wine drinkers to better taste the individual characteristics of wines, before they are blended in a finished product. This allows for differentiation between wine from grapes from different vineyards, or even parts of the same vineyard.

For consumers, barrel tasting is a chance to buy "futures" in a wine that has not yet been released to the market. If tasters buy a wine before it is released, they can have access to a hot vintage that may never make it to the buying public, and at a cost below what the finished wine would be.

Winemakers look forward to Barrel Tasting Month as a chance to talk with the wine-buying public in a relaxed, informal setting. "Barrel tasting is the only time you get to taste wine while it is still in the process between the grape and the bottle," says Lindley Bynum, retail sales manager at Davis Bynum Winery, a Sonoma County pioneer of Russian River Pinot Noir. Bynum offers this tip to barrel tasting visitors: "Go to the barrel tasting web site to check out wineries and plan your route. Many will be offering special tours, winemaker dinners, music and other fun things along with the barrel tasting."

Other activities planned for the Barrel Tasting month include the four-day Artisan Cheese Festival in Petaluma, featuring top chefs and craft cheese makers from around California. The event includes cheese tastings, cooking demonstrations, a marketplace, and even visits to local artisan cheese producers. The Artisan Cheese Festival runs March 9 to March 12.

For a list of Barrel Tasting activities and a calendar of events, visit www.sonomacounty.com and click on the Barrel Tasting icon. Sonoma County, located 30 miles from San Francisco, is America's premier wine, spa and coastal destination, featuring more than 250 wineries and 76 miles of stunning Pacific coast.