We love the wines from el Sol. And the people of el Sol make the tasting experience even more fun. One of our favorite activities while visiting the tasting room is the barrel tasting that accompanies nearly every visit. Our recent visit was no exception. In addition to enjoying some lovely new releases, we had a chance to taste some soon-to-be-released wines in the barrel room.
So our excuse for visiting was picking up our wine club releases. Yes, plural. We were able to miss TWO release parties. The shame, the shame. So we had some serious wine to pick up.
Once we checked in, we caught up with the new wines. One of our new favorites has the fun name “Seat of the Pants.” It was so named because it was a blend of several varietals and multiple barrels, all blended to taste. Not only seat of the pants, but also once in a lifetime. Truly a wine that can not be reproduced. We found it to be light, crisp and well balanced. Too bad it will never come around again!
The highlight of our visit, though, was our trip to the barrel room. We tasted a 2007 Syrah, humorously labeled “Lodi Loco Lobo.” A nice syrah, but we felt that those last few weeks in the barrel will serve it well.
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| Barrel Tasting! |
We finished up our barrel tasting with a 2010 Zinfandel. This has the makings of a great fall Zin. There is some real personality to this wine, especially now before the edges are smoothed away.
Both of these wines are available for purchase as futures, with the few remaining cases available in the tasting room.Given the embarrassing capacity problem I have with the wine fridge, we didn’t take advantage of the great futures pricing. Hopefully we will be able to taste the finished product when we visit el Sol this autumn. Nicely done, Hal!
About the Author: John grills a mean steak and is always in the market for another wine fridge. Believes that if a winery has more than 10 employees, it's probably too big. Buys wine faster than he drinks it, but who cares?
