What’s in a Library?

When I was younger, I imagined myself locked inside of the library for the weekend. Surrounding myself with all of those books, words, knowledge, and history was both thrilling and comforting to me. Now all of these years later, I have access to my own library. I’ve just filled this one with wine instead of books. 

In “winespeak”, library wines an older vintage than what we are selling or pouring in the tasting room. For winemakers, library wines can be an important source of information. They can tell us how the wines age or what vintages might stand out in aroma, taste, and texture. In our temperature-controlled environment, we can taste a place in time in terms of vintage excellence, or winemaking style, or both. 

Here at Carhartt, we’ve saved a few cases of wine from each vintage since our first bottling in 1998. Over the years, we’ve purposely held back more wine for our library, so we can share it with our Rascal family on special occasions. One of the most interesting ways to taste library wines is via a “vertical” tasting. Essentially, it’s a tasting of the same wine but from different years. What a way to experience (and taste) “history” in a glass!