Saw a sign today that Flora Springs Winery was having an open house, so I turned up Zinfandel Lane. What a beautiful setting, right below the mountain range on the western edge of the valley. The winery itself was quite lovely, with a classic stone winery architecture and cool concrete caves with lonnnng tunnels.
They were pouring their "Trilogy" "Bordeaux" blend (Meritage). The Trilogy wines characteristically have a lot of green from the Cab Franc-these are not "over-ripe" wines. The 2005 was quite bright and lively and very, very young-with a lot of green-ess but enough ripe fruit and other things going on, it might be quite appealing in a couple of years. Right now: 13.5/20 with strong upside potential because of the good palate cleansing acidity.
The 2004 was a darker, richer wine with the acidity settling down. Still, there was more green than typical for Napa 2004 Cab-based wines. Quite nice, actually...A very refreshing wine, because of the acidity and lighter mouthfeel. Still, nice blackberry and cassis fruit. Smooth tannmins that are not too drying. Oak was balanced-there was no blast of vanilla. 15/20???