Barrel samples for bench trials.
There are a couple times a year when we get to really geek out on our wine. Obviously harvest lets us get down and dirty with our vines and crushing the grapes, but this time of year we get familiar and obsess over our reds from the previous vintage.
Last week we pulled our 2008 samples from the barrels to determine our line up of reds from that vintage. We had learned a great deal from pouring these wines at last month’s Barrel Tasting Friday and the input we received reinforced our feelings that the vintage deserved a Meritage blend as well as a Reserve Cabernet Franc.
Out of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc, the CF
is showing the best at the moment and will be racked out of barrels as soon as
possible. Racking is when you basically siphon the wine out of the barrel into
a stainless tank. We’ve picked the barrels that will go into each blend and for
example in our Reserve CF, we will rack three barrels into a tank and let them
marry together for up to a month before we bottle.
It looks like our Meritage will be a blend of all three grapes with the CF making up the majority of the wine. We will also bottle a single label Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon from this vintage as well.
Overall we are surprised at how good these reds look considering 2008 wasn’t the warmest growing season, but once again we owe it to our Vineyard Manager Chip Manning for giving us healthy grapes.
We have such a good time coming up with the blending ratios that we are going to have a Barrel tasting Friday Event next month where you’ll be able to blend your own wine from the three varieties and take home your creation. Make sure you are on our mailing list by emailing wines@freedomrunwinery.com or by finding us on Facebook to get word of when we schedule this blending party!
