Bremer Family (4.94)




Open By appointment

Appt required? Yes

Last barlinwine.com visit: 2014 (April 17, 2012 Itinerary)

Directions:
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Tasting:
Away from the hustle and bustle of Hwy 29 and the Silverado Trail, Bremer Family Winery allows wine lovers to experience the best of Napa Valley without the crowdedness, the pretension, or the commercialism of the average Napa establishment. Nestled amid a no-nonsense set of buildings in the Howell Mountain foothills, Bremer invites guests to come and experience wine tasting the way I believe it should be.

Upon arrival at Bremer, guests are typically greeted and invited to taste in one of three locations. When the weather is average and the group is small, the Bremer office allows for a sit down tasting, often paired with some small snacks to help cleanse the palate between tastes. For larger groups, tastings can be conducted in a larger tasting room (up to 6), and when the weather is nice, tastings can be conducted at one of Bremer's many shaded picnic tables. Tastings typically include Bremer's smooth and oakey Chardonnay, 1-2 Zinfandels (they make a Howell Mountain and a Napa Zin), 1-2 Cabernets, a Merlot, and their delicious Claret. They also produce a Cabernet Franc when the fruit allows. There's not a bad wine in the group, and I think I can safely say every wine I've had from them is excellent.

With regards to a tasting experience, Bremer separates themselves from other wineries by their desire to simply showcase their product and the enjoyment they take from the pleasure it brings to their guests. I've never had a host aggressively push wine on me; never have I heard a rating mentioned at Bremer. There's no wine club or logo merchandise for sale...just delicious wine to sample and appreciate. On a recent trip, we did vertical tastings of their Claret ('02, '03, '04) and Merlot, and they were genuinely interested in our feedback, even passing out tasting sheets that they asked us to return with questions like "Do you think this wine ready to drink now? If not, when do you think it will peak?"

As the folks at Bremer will tell you, they're not on a lot of maps, and that's how they like it. They've started to expand in recent years, adding an outdoor pizza oven (which they'll fire up on weekends and serve complimentary gourmet flatbreads to go with your wine tasting). They have also been working on constructing wine caves on the property to take their craft to an even higher level. One of their employees, Richard, said to me on my first visit that "If you try to classify a wine, good and bad is simply a matter of taste. The best wine in the world won't taste good to certain people. But what fewer people would debate is whether a wine is fine or not. Even if they don't think a wine tastes good to their palate, most people can agree that it is or is not a fine wine". Those words rang true to me, and the wine at Bremer is undoubtedly fine (and also good!).


Recommended wine: I've been happy with every wine I've had from Bremer. While the Claret stands out as my favorite, I think they are universally good.


Ratings (out of 5):


WINE
5.00
TASTING ROOM
5.00

ATMOSPHERE
5.00
VALUE
4.75

OVERALL
4.94

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