Every March the Russian River Wine Road puts on its annual barrel tasting event where you can throw down $10 and get in two days of barrel tasting at a huge number of Sonoma wineries. We’ve found some great wines through barrel tasting — like Armida‘s Keefer Ranch Chardonnay and Dutcher Crossing‘s Nevins Cab. But you can find yourself in a rut, so this year we diversified and hit Dutcher Crossing, Bella, Passalacqua and Seghesio.
While Bella netted out the best pix — those are barrels in their cave up above, it was Seghesio with the best tasting (non barrel) of the day. It was the only place wine decided it better go home with us. I’ve had some mixed experiences with Seghesio in the past – most likely because of bad wine handling/storage by retailers — because we’ve also had some really excellent ones from Seghesio as well.
Seghesio Highlights —
2005 Pinot Grigio — less mineraly than I would have expected. The tasting notes say floral and apple — I think I got both of those. It was a gorgeous day in Sonoma – this wine our group dubbed the “sitting on the porch on a sunny day” wine.
Home Ranch Zinfandel — this was one I had previously that I found a little acidic (and potentially baked off due to bad handling) but straight from the source this one was all black fruit without being too jammy. Mmm…someone break out the BBQ.
esmith
March 12, 2007 at 5:51 pm>I am so sad we weren’t there! Next year 🙂 I am reading this everyday now Mich.