Barrel Work!

We are excited at Cellar 426 to introduce barrel aging to our winemaking regiment. In past years we have used oak cubes to oak our wines. The cubes have done a great job in our Soliel and Big Bold Red and are a fraction of the cost. For a young start up winery that is huge.  But for this year we wanted to make the jump and do some wine with barrels.

This week we barreled our Big Bold Red which is an estate blend of Frontenac and Marquette.  The two barrels we are using for this wine each has a different makeup to it. This will allow us to see which one we feel turned out the best wine and which way we want to go in future years. We will be aging the wine in the barrels until mid to late summer 2014.