Dalla Vina Cabernet Franc 06
The Dalla Vina Cabernet Franc is a deep ruby in color with a restrained nose of dried fruit leaves, herbs and baking spices. Prominent flavors of mint, root beer and oak followed by fine wood tannins and a medium finish. Tightly wound in its youth, this wine will age gracefully over the next ten years. Serve with rack of lamb and prime rib.
MORE INFORMATION
Made with fruit from Elerding Vineyard's "Six Prong" site in Alderdale, the site is on a bluff overlooking the Columbia River, with chalky soil suited to Bordeaux varietals. "Six Prong" is a comparatively low yield, weather and soil stressed vineyard, producing about 3 tons of fruit per acre.
In production of this wine, the grapes were hand sorted, then lightly crushed and destemmed to break the skins but to not crush the seeds (you don't want to crush the seeds or you get tannins that create undesirable drying and "puckery" tannins in the wine). The wine was open top fermented in 1.5 ton bins after a 3-4 day cold soak. Grapes were cold soaked to get the most essence and flavor from the grape skins. The grapes were innoculated with commercial yeast, and were fermented to dryness in about 10 days at room temperature. The wine was settled in stainless steel tanks for 48 hours, then transferred to 2 year old oak barrels.
The winemaker is not fond of over-oaked wines, he likes tannins and depth of fruit flavor to come from the fruit itself, so he uses 2 year old barrels, which impart much less oak flavor to the wine. The wine was aged in barrel from November 2004 to July 2005, when it was bottled.
