Winemaker’s 2017 Vintage Wine Tasting Notes:

2017 Pink Diamond Rose of Cabernet Franc

The 2017 vintage was going along just fine up to veraison when lightning struck and ignited a nearby forest fire.  The fire was finally contained 3.8 miles from our vineyard but wasn’t extinguished until the fall rains came.  The result was our grapes were exposed to over 8 weeks of extreme smoke and sophisticated chemical tests for smoke taint showed that if they were used to make our normal red wines the wines were in great jeopardy of becoming badly flawed.  The problem was in the chemistry evolving in the grape’s skins.  Our winemaker chose to harvest and make a Rose with drastically limited skin contact time and to ferment only free run juice.  Then he worked his magic in the winery taking every step possible to avoid badly smoke tainted wines.

Happily the result was a gorgeous Rose without a hint of smoke taint!

Tasting Note – March 19, 2018

This is a dry Rose reminiscent of the dry Rose wines found in the South of France.  It was minimally handled and not sent through malolactic.  Newly opened, its first impression both on the nose and palate is of honey crisp apples characteristic of its untouched malic content – but as with great wines there’s more below.   Underlying the first impression comes another layer of flavors.  Tropical fruits of strawberry, apricot, guava and passion fruit show their faces making this wine uniquely interesting to sophisticated palates.  We couldn’t be happier with how the wine turned out.  Avoid serving ice cold and give it a few minutes of air time to bring our more of its tropical fruit layer.

Varietals:
Cabernet Franc 100%

Skin Contact:
15 minutes or less

Barrel Aging:
Zero Months, held in stainless only until bottling

Pair with: A refreshing wine for summer sipping but also a serious wine to with the character and mouthfeel to pair with foods.  This is not the cloyingly sweet wine you might expect.  Especially it works with fish and seafoods but also with Cheese based Frittatas, Charcuterie plates, Moroccan or vegetarian fare.  Think warm Mediterranean coastal foods and you can’t go wrong.  This is a wine that reminds us of why Rose is the preferred wine in the South of France!