Cabernet Franc Reserve 2006 $24
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This vineyard’s renown Cabernet Franc rests on the most consistent critical acclaim for any varietal red wine
produced in the Eastern United States, but to be fair, this distinction comes from the ground. They grow the most
diversified array of Cabernet Franc clones in the region - 4 from Bordeaux, 1 from the Loire - offering a wine-making
palette of matchless permutation and subtlety. At the same time, the vineyard has so well established its Merlot, Petit Verdot, and Cabernet Sauvignon, that the Cabernet Franc Reserve is never less than the most elegant exemplar of the varietal in any vintage. The House red wine at The Inn at Little Washington, it responds to a knowing demand for a characterful, intriguing, and refreshingly well-bred wine for dining, and indeed for conversation with friends who delight in fine wine for its own sake.
Vintage Factors:
A vintage of exceptional strength. This vintage has been awarded the Gold Medal of the Critics Challenge International Wine Competition (2008).
Vinification:
Traditional fermentation on the skins, and maceration of up to 21 days in stainless steel tank. Aged up to 14
months in new and used barriques of superior French oak, air-dried at least 3 years before coopering.
Analysis:
13.5% Alcohol, 0.0% Residual Sugar, 0.57% Total Acidity
Tasting Notes:
Dark garnet core, brilliant clarity in the glass. Intense, effusively luscious flavors of ripe red berries with
caramelised notes of fig, cherry, and plum, elegantly woven together in barrel. Long-finishing and tannically vivid, yet with
a remarkably soft palate.
Optimum Drinking:
Readily enjoyable at this time, the wine will reveal itself importantly more by mid-2008, and then enter into an
annually enriched term continuing into 2012, and will sustain that plateau 3 to 6 years.
Food Pairings:
Braised veal roast served with baby vegetables, Tagliolini with breast of duck ragù, Roasted lamb with rosemary and garlic over soft polenta
Octagon 2005 $40
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Octagon is this growing region’s definition in red wine.
What explains its honors and age worthiness is that it disclosed itself, over decades of empirical investigation of this
terroir with many clones of many wine grapes. To discover Octagon and what it represents, is the founding charter to which this estate is dedicated, without preference, and with no ambition other than the honest passion to elicit the beauty of this ground.
While rare in supply, Octagon is no longer rare in annual production, because the proof of the vigor of its constituent parts -- Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Verdot -- flowed naturally from the discovery of growing sites, clonal selections, trellising systems, and vine management techniques which reveal the persistent voice of our terroir in a wide range of seasonal conditions.
Octagon became, thereby, the authentic extraction of its time as well as of its place, one of the most rewarding proofs of the vitality of the Bordeaux style in the New World. The privilege of crafting this wine can be sensed each time one of its vintages is tasted, over a long and rewarding shelf life.
Vintage Factors:
The 2005 vintage is of a great age-worthiness, winning the Gold Medal of the Monticello Winegrowers Competition (2007).
Vinification:
A proprietary blend driven by Merlot, with elements of Reserve Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit
Verdot. The constituents are vinified in different lots, using the same method. Fermentation in stainless steel tank for 5-7 days, macerated for 10-20 days depending upon the varietal. Aged 12 to 14 months in new Gamba barriques of the most select French oak, air-dried a minimum of 3 years before coopering, laid down in bottle for an additional six months before release.
Analysis:
13.8% Alcohol, 0.0% Residual Sugar, 0.58% Total Acidity
Tasting Notes:
Dark, rich garnet color with an intense aroma of plum, cassis, coffee and berries woven together in barrel for a
phenomenally full and silky palate. Tannins are resplendent and graceful.
Optimum Drinking:
Extremely forthcoming and elegant now, this vintage will enter its best years in approximately 2012, and enjoy
aging thereafter for at least another 5.
Food Pairings:
Osso buco alla veneziana, Chicken braised in Red wine (Octagon!?) and black olives, Sage and walnut-crusted lamb chop in rosemary jus
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