Brick Barn is one of the newer wineries to the area, situated just west of Buellton. We had tasted their wines a number of months ago and enjoyed their whites, which included a delicious Albarino. At the time, we met their General Manager who reached out to us to come back and meet/taste with their new winemaker, Adrian Bolshoi. Adrian is originally from Maldova and learned old world winemaking traditions from his grandfather, producing small lots of homemade wine each year. After earning his Bachelor's Degree in Enology, Adrian accepted an internship in the US and landed in the heart of Santa Barbara wine country just in time for the 2011 harvest. He is now in the process of obtaining US Citizenship!

He was an excellent host – very passionate about the wines he is making, and a lot of fun! We tasted through a number of their wines, but Adrian’s wines are still in “development” in the cellar, so he took us back to do some tank/barrel tasting. It is so interesting to taste wines before they have been completed. His Syrah has amazing potential once it sees some oak and some time. When tasting these young wines, you have the chance to get a “sneak peak” at what these wines will be like when released. The winemaker will talk you through his thought process on making the wines, and you have the chance to ask questions. For example, when you look at many of these wines, they appear cloudy. We learned about the process of “cold-settling” - using very cold temperatures in the tanks to remove some of the biomaterial in the wine. We also learned that there are tons of various yeasts you can choose from to get the fermentation process going!

We really enjoyed our time at Brick Barn yesterday and look forward to seeing the final product of Adrian’s wines sometime next year. You may see them in a Club shipment!