by Ron DiLauro » Thu Mar 24, 2011 2:06 pm
When I visited Napa/Sonoma, I stopped at Frank Family. It was a trailer style setup and a jovial bearded man greeted us with a glass of American Sparking wine. Then we proceeded into the next trailer room, where he discussed many of his wines.
We purchased a number of his (2005) Chardonnay's. Zinfandel and Cabernet Sauvignon. ( My favorite is their Zinfandel) Their Cabernet is somewhat higher in alcohol (14+%) that most other Cabs.
I thought the Cabernet was really a well balanced wine, but I noticed that after two years or so, it had lost some of its appeal and excitement.
I am only putting forth a guess here, but based on the amount of tannins I felt in their older vintages, I would like to say its totally drinkable now and probably for the next 3-5 years. Hopefully, someone else with more knowledge about this wine can comment.
(As a side note, while talking to bearded man, we got on the subject about the serving temperature for Chardonnay's. In the past, my wife and I generally light them chilled a bit. He said, not to, in fact he stressed tasting Chardonnay's at room temperature. He went on to say, think about this, when you are mowing your lawn on a hot summer day, all you want is an ice cold beer.... Probably dont even taste it, but its cold and refreshing. You really cant taste anything about the beer itself. He said the same for Chardonnays. If they are too cold, you can not taste all the attributes of the wine. But at room temperature you can. Since then, we always drink Chardonnays at the same temperature I would for a Cabernet .)
Ron - Lets Talk Wine!
