I didn't attend our neighborhood wine tasting on Friday night as I was at a friend's birthday party, but I purchased four Washington CFs, one Italian and one French, and prepped the wines that afternoon, tasting each. Here's what I found in what we were serving:
2007 Chinook, Yakima Valley, Washington, $22
Winemaker Kay Simon has had a love affair with this grape for years, and her version is typically a saturated, low-acid style. This wine's not that, but a bit on the light side at just barely medium bodied with a mid-palate that fades to nothing on the finish. If that doesn't change, it will be a last place finisher.
2007 Owen Roe 'Rosa Mystica', Yakima Valley, Washington, $42
A stunner. Big wine, rich fruit and big tannins. Plenty of oak in all the good ways. Will do well with the serious cab sauv drinkers.
2006 Willow Crest, Yakima Valley, Washington $13
This wine has a reputation among the ITB types for being an uncompromising value, the kind one might say "astonishing at the price" about. Well, all I can say is it's a $13 wine and it tastes like one. The only herb in this cab franc is the dill it's pulling off the (I'm presuming) American oak. On the palate it's simple cherry fruit. The tannin-haters will love it, but I'm hoping we can at least prevent it from running away with the election by burying it in the slot.
2007 Tamarack, Wahluke Slope, Washington, $20
A richer big bodied style wine with good varietal character. More sweet fruit upfront than the Owen Roe but without being stupid about it. This has 1st place written all over it, so we put it in the D or E slot. In the A slot, it would cause a landslide.
2006 De Tarczal, Trentino, Italy, $17
WHAT A GREAT NOSE--it just jumps out of the glass. Green but not nasty or underripe, just rather untamed in the herb department, enchantingly so in fact, with grapefruit and spice. On the palate, assertive raspberry fruit, great acid. Just what you'd hope for, in fact, from an Italian Cab Franc. Jim likes it but not as much as I do, and agrees it's the least likely to have broad appeal (going to be a love it or hate it kind of wine), so we place it in the A slot just to mix things up.
2008 Bernard Baudry 'Les Granges, Chinon, France, $20
(Baudry fans note: this wine has suddenly jumped four bucks in price.) Restrained fruit, good herbs, a bit tight right now. However, even if it opens up as it should, it's not likely to place well in the tasting so we put it in slot C.
The results: The Tamarack won the night as expected. Unfortunately, they found the Willow Crest way down there at the end of the alphabet and gave it #2. The De Tarczal took 3rd, and I guarantee you that's because we put it in the first position, followed by the Chinook, the Owen Roe (this surprises me) and lastly, the Baudry.