Minnesota is home to an amazing wine community, and we are so proud to be part of it! This July, Carlos Creek Winery welcomed eight different wineries to our property for a Winemakers Round-Table Meeting.
Every year the University of Minnesota Grape Breeding & Enology Project hosts a series of winemaking roundtables. Held around the region, these meetings are opportunities for wineries to connect and bring wine for tasting. At each meeting, there’s a blind tasting of barrel or tank samples as well as bottled wines followed by a group critique.
July 2022 Winemaker Round Table
On July 11, a gathering table filled the Creekside Room of the Grand Hall where a group of winemakers sampled 18 different wines from around the region, including some from our neighbors Rolling Forks Vineyard in Glenwood, Minnesota and Burr Vineyards in Brandon, Minnesota.
It was an awesome day to welcome our peers to Carlos Creek Winery. These meetings are always a fun opportunity to chat with others about what they have going on and sample wines from around the region,” said Head Winemaker Russ Funk.
The winemakers took about a half hour to sample and take notes on the wines. After that, they began to discuss each wine’s flavor profiles and characteristics. There is a great deal of behind-the-scenes work that goes into winemaking. Before the bottle ever makes it into a customer’s hands, there’s been a great deal of time and effort taken to ensure the wine is exactly how it’s supposed to be. The roundtables are a great opportunity for winemakers to get a sense of how others taste their wines. Discussing each wine sample allows them to share things that work well or don’t work well before bottling and selling.
At Carlos Creek Winery, intention guides every effort. We use great care to achieve the beautiful balance you experience every time you open a bottle of our wine. Careful tasting and discussion about each wine is part of that process.
Want to learn more about winemaking? Check out our Barrel Aging 101 guide for more on our barrel-aging program. Interested in the viticulture side of things? Read about how ensure grapevine survival in the bold, cold north. And don’t forget to follow us on Instagram and TikTok for behind the scenes looks at life at the winery!
