by Jenise » Thu May 24, 2018 1:12 pm
So though I put all this in another post, here's a bunch of Cab Francs from Washington state that came to a 'Global Cab Franc' tasting, along with a little bully pulpit stuff.
2013 Rasa Vineyards Cabernet Franc QED Axiom of Choice Walla Walla Valley
Beautifully balanced, fruit/complexity/acid/tannins--everything just right for a new world CF. Excellent. I love what the brothers are doing at Rasa--I have yet to have one of their wines that didn't impress.
2014 Bonair Cabernet Franc Puryear Vineyard Rattlesnake Hills
One of Washington's oldest wineries that no one's ever heard of, including most Washingtonians. Very inconsistent producer who had a great year with cab franc a few years ago, a wine that sold for just $13, and might have been '13 vintage, and suddenly their wines were everywhere but newer vintages, like this one, just haven't held up. Major brett on the nose, rustic palate, fades quickly. Junk.
2013 Spring Valley Vineyard Cabernet Franc Katherine Corkrum Walla Walla Valley
Here's a winery I kind of ignored based on the belief that their wines were overwrought with oak. A few bottles in the last couple years have shown me that I made a mistake. Sure, there's new world berry fruit and some oak here, but also mushrooms, herbs, orange peel and other things Loire-like. However a brown paper bag note brought disagreement about corked or not. I voted 'not'. Very good.
2013 Tero Estates Cabernet Franc Windrow Vineyard Walla Walla Valley
Never heard of Tero before and never want to again. Chocolatey, quite sweet but more like artificial sweetener than real sugar, ripe and goopy, drinks like an Orin Swift wine (yuck). But hey, does anyone remember Scott Windrow? Long time ago was active on the Compuserve board and made the move to WLDG, I think. This was his vineyard--used to sell most of it to Seven Hills, but i have no idea if he's still around.
2016 Savage Grace Wines Cabernet Franc Copeland Vineyard Rattlesnake Hills
Michael Savage is a new force in Washington wines. Very much a purist in style, his wines never show oak or other interferences, but he's not yet well off enough to hold them the extra year needed before release to show as they should. For instance his Malbec, which he calls Cot, usually throws some to-me bubble gummy notes that remind me of carbonic maceration, which I can't stand, and time would take care of that. His cab franc gets high marks for being Loire-ish. This bottle, however, shows light bodied with more strange cardboardy vegetal flavors than fruit. Those present argue about whether this is flawed (I voted flawed) or just in juvenile detention.
2015 Whidbey Island Winery Cabernet Franc Yakima Valley
Very little acid. Cocoa and graham crackers for fruit, tannins shut things down. Clunky. A surprise, I'd liked this winery's CF a lot in the past.
2013 Andrew Will Cabernet Franc
Shows more ripe sweetness than complexity, and it lacks brightness/acidity. Might be asleep. Nonetheless, I was disappointed, I quite liked another bottle a year ago.
2016 Walla Walla Vintners Cabernet Franc Columbia Valley
Great new label, big improvement. Fruit forward but sturdy, there's power here in the good new world ripeness. Very enjoyable.
So this was a very interesting tasting. Eight or ten other wines present were from France or California. With very little exception it was pretty clear when we tasted a wine whether or not it was old or new world, and if new, if it was from California or Washington because the Californians were all bigger. And not in a bad way, just different. The one misdirect where we thought one thing might be something else was a Charles Joguet from 2014, and only because of the ripeness, but it's nonetheless evidence of the similarity between Washington and Loire for this grape when bad winemaking doesn't get in the way. And unfortunately, it usually does.
My wine shopping and I have never had a problem. Just a perpetual race between the bankruptcy court and Hell.--Rogov