Recently, we went down on Wednesday and pulled samples from every barrel and sat down and evaluated them. It’s a hard job, but someone’s got to do it. 😉 Barrel tasting is something I do pretty much every week, but this particular tasting was exciting because it is the time of year when the wines start to show. For the first few months, there’s so much fermentation and activity and change happening in the wines, it can be hard to get a sense of what they’ll become. But as that tapers off, and they settle down and are racked clean, you start to get a sense of where the wine is going. So here’s an update on the 2024 wines:

• The 2024 Zin – grown by Roger King – is very par for the course for grapes from his vineyard. For some reason, Roger’s Zinfandel takes about a year and a half to fully develop – it’s a late bloomer every time – but so far I’d say that this wine is really tracking pretty close to the 2022 Zin (you may know it as “Joie De Vivre”) so that’s a good sign. It is mostly barreled down for the winter, which is good – I don’t have to worry about it as much!

• The 2024 edition of “Le “Z” in Rose” is developing nicely, and tastes exactly as I remember the 2022 Rose tasting at this time.

• Our 2024 Carneros Pinot – from Carlos Madrigal – is still shaking off some fermentation funk, but it is showing every sign of rivaling our 2019 Pinot from Kim Giles’ amazing vineyard. It is funny how recognizably different Carneros Pinot is from the Petaluma Gap-adjacent Pinot we made in 2021. I am excited to see how it develops. It has rolled in at a very respectable 13% alcohol, which goes to show how perfectly evenly ripe the grapes were. Sitting on the skins increased the sugar levels (and thus alcohol) hardly at all. It has wrapped up malolactic fermentation, and the only thing left is for the winery guys to move it into its new barrels and make sure it is topped and given a good dose of So2 to keep it safe for the winter.

• The unexpected 2024 Suisun Valley Chardonnay – from Caymus-Suisun- has continued to be unexpected. I wanted to be a little experimental with it, and I think it paid off. It’s currently split between a puncheon (a very large barrel) and a regular barrel. There’s a very slight color difference between the two, and a noticeable difference in oak and development. Blended together, though, I had to basically wrestle the glass back from my dad, so I’m taking that as a good sign.

• The 2024 Muscat continues to be our problem child, which is par for the course from 2022 and 2023. It’s always my favorite, I don’t know why it has to make me suffer. One of the interesting things about it is how much the aromatic profile changed this year from past years, as mentioned above. But really, the reason it is a problem child is that it is still fermenting and that means I have to continue checking on it and worrying about it.

• The 2023 Zin is perfection itself and really the only issue with it is that I still am working on getting it bottled! I always save it for last when we taste wine at the winery.