Wine enthusiasts are set to scry the future during the first two weekends in March when the Wine Roads organization holds its Barrel Tasting event. For the 35th annual Barrel Tasting, on March 1-3 and 8-10, more than 120 wineries will be opening their doors and welcoming thousands of visitors to try wine straight from the barrel.
The concept is that by allowing people to sample the young, unfinished wines, they can attempt to predict the potential of the vintage and then purchase futures towards the finished product at a reduced rate.
“There are so many wineries that say this is the most important event that they do all year,” executive director of Wine Roads, Beth Costa said. “By buying futures, you’re helping the winery to help pay for the glass to bottle their next vintage. They count on this revenue from barrel tasting.”
Participating wineries reported sales of $2.2 million at last year’s Barrel Tasting according to a survey conducted by Wine Roads. Some wineries make wine in such small lots that they often sell out in futures alone, Costa said.
“They know that they’re making 50 cases and that’s what they sell in futures,” she said. “If you didn’t buy the futures, that’s it, you won’t be getting it and that’s what people come in from all over the country for.”
While not all wineries sell futures of their wine, David Coffaro Winery has taken to it with gusto.
“We’ve sold more futures than anyone in Sonoma County,” owner Dave Coffaro said. “We’ve been selling them since we began with the 1995 vintage. A few years ago we used to make 10 percent of our sales for the whole year at Barrel Tasting, back when it was only one weekend. Now it’s still six or seven percent during that event.”
Coffaro will go so far as to open up sales of 2013 wine futures at the end of March, once he has an idea of the crop he’ll be harvesting in the Fall.
But despite the success of the event with some wineries, not everyone is as excited about Barrel Tasting. Historically, low event entry prices have encouraged a younger demographic to the wine tasting weekends.
“The younger consumers don’t have the sophistication of knowledge to make an investment decision,” Preston of Dry Creek owner Lou Preston said.
Preston hasn’t participated in Barrel Tasting since 2007, in part because the event doesn’t align with the winery’s philosophy of the tasting experience, he said.
“We educate our visitors and present a unique perspective on the traditions of the Dry Creek Valley,” Preston said. “We used to be very enthusiastic about these events, but honestly the time pressure and pressure of numbers makes it impossible to have the experience we want to create. It’s about numbers and about everyone being in a hurry.”
In Healdsburg, businesses are also faced with increased traffic as a result of the event.
David Lengvarsky, general manager of the Healdsburg Bar and Grill, said he views it with mixed emotions.
“We definitely get busy and get rocked,” Lengvarsky said. “It brings a good night-crowd, primed and ready to go.”
But some people get carried away and inevitably one or two tables at the restaurant per year are cut off during Barrel Tasting.
Though he loves the business, he isn’t sure about the event, he said.
“It’s not my favorite event that Wine Roads puts on,” Lengvarsky said. “You don’t necessarily get the wine country feel with that event.”
But Wine Roads wants to change that perception, according to Beth Costa.
“It had become more of a party and a lot of people were coming who were not very interested in buying futures and not very interested in the fact that it was a rare experience to get into the cellar and taste wine directly from the barrel,” she said. “We’re trying to rein it in a little bit and not have as much of a crowd and have people more interested in what the event is all about.”
Part of the strategy for streamlining the event is a new tiered price structure, Costa said, with advance tickets for $30 available in January for each weekend, then $40 tickets available in February and finally, $50 tickets available during the event itself. This pricing structure, paired with the banning of buses with capacity of 24 or more, would be sufficient to tone the event down, Costa said.
“We’ve had lots of phone calls with people saying, ‘We’ve been coming on a bus with our friends for years,’ and we’ve been clear that they will not be allowed any longer,” she said.
“The biggest problem in downtown Healdsburg is that if five or six school-size buses park downtown somewhere, it looks like Mardi Gras,” she said. “Once you’ve gotten rid of those massive groups of people at a time showing up, we just don’t foresee it being a problem at all.”
Already, Wine Roads is already estimating event participants to number around 16,000 for the two-weekend event, down from last year’s 20,000 attendees.
Not everyone is happy to hear that Barrel Tasting could be smaller in 2013. On hearing the projected attendance numbers, David Coffaro looked glum.
“That could hurt us,” he said.
For more information on Barrel Tasting visit: www.wineroad.com.
