Review: Brian Carter Cellars
Brian Carter Cellars is a fun place to enjoy and discover new wine.
Located south of downtown Woodinville, Brian Carter Cellars maintains a temporary tasting room near the construction site that will become Woodinville Village. This new residential/retail/wine community will be home to four boutique wineries, with Brian Carter opening a brand new facility sometime in late 2008.
Their tasting room offers outdoor seating and plenty of room inside at the tasting bar. The place was busy when I arrived, with folks seated at all of the outdoor tables, clearly enjoying the beautiful weather with their wine. The tasting room was well staffed with several servers taking care of everyone at the bar and on the patio. There is a $8 tasting fee, refundable with wine purchase. Besides wine, you can buy and adorn yourself with all kinds of branded clothing and caps. Bread, crackers and water was also available at no charge.
Having yet to experience the wines under Brian Carter's label, I was eager to taste and learn more about his winery. As such, I had the good fortune of being served by Karen at the tasting bar. She not only provided great service, but was eager to answer my questions about the who, what and where of this new winery. From my conversation with Karen, I learned more about Brian's background and his winemaking style. As their tagline states, Brian Carter Cellars' focus is on blending and they do it well as evidenced by the one white and four red wines I sampled on this Saturday.
It was fun tasting each wine and hearing Karen describe where the grapes where sourced and how it was made. These were some of the more interesting wines I tasted on my day out in Woodinville Wine Country. Granted, I am partial to blends, but Brian's style of crafting low alcohol, food friendly wines make me an immediate fan. Complementing Karen's insights were the useful tasting notes, which were on one sheet detailing each wine's blend, vineyards and other data.
Similar to my experience at Novelty Hill-Januik, I was impressed with Karen's modest approach in describing each wine. Although they list points on their tasting notes, I don't recall her mentioning scores, reviews or awards during our conversation. She and others working there appear to just let the wine speak for itself, which is a good thing. There is nothing that needs to get in the way of experiencing Brian Carter's wines. And I look forward to doing this again next year in their brand new winery at Woodinville Village.
