Tom DeBiase wrote: ↑September 16th, 2020, 2:16 pm
If you like a lighter style Cab Franc that is delicious and so easy to drink, try RYME Cab Franc. The 2018 is the current vintage and it is excellent. Added bonus is lower alcohol and only old barrels used.
Will post a recent note later.
Here is my note from earlier this year. No need to spend anywhere near $100.00, the 2018 RYME Cab Franc is $35.00 direct from the winery.
2018 Ryme Cabernet Franc Alegria Vineyard: The wine was fermented in two separate lots. One was a whole cluster fermentation in a tank and pressed gently by foot once a day to keep the top fresh and release some juice. This results in a partial carbonic fermentation. The other lot was whole cluster into clay amphora. Both fermentations were pressed separately to neutral oak barrels and blended prior to bottling.
Bright fresh cherry, crushed black pepper, green herbs, basil and cedar. Very good acidity and some grippy tannins on the finish. Year after year the Ryme Cab Franc is a favorite of ours. Very versatile with food. 12.5 ABV.
Tom
Good recommendation, Tom, and I've loved just about every Cab Franc that's come from Alegría Vineyard in RRV. Frankly, I think most of the wines posted in this thread - at least those that I'm somewhat familiar with - are on the bigger, Cabernet Sauvignon-like end of the Cab Franc spectrum. Probably 80-90% of California Cab Franc falls into that category. I did a blind tasting a few years ago of lighter, Loire Valley-inspired California Cab Franc bottlings (along with some French ringers), and can recommend some others.
I'd say my favorites of the tasting were:
Broc (from Santa Barbara County fruit)
Tessier (past vintages from Alegría Vineyard fruit, now from El Dorado County)
Lo-Fi (from Santa Barbara County fruit)
Babame (from El Dorado County fruit, made by Steve Edmunds)
Others a notch below but still good:
Methode Sauvage (from Bates Ranch, Santa Cruz County)
Prima Materia (from Lake County)
Krater (from El Dorado County)
We also had one from Bailiwick but they're no longer in business.
As with the Ryme Cab Franc, I don't think any of these were even approaching $50 - I'd guess all were $35 or less. I think the higher the price, the more Cabernet Sauvignon-like the wine is likely to be.
The tasting was to help prepare for our first Cab Franc at Harrington Wines in 2017. Unfortunately Bryan Harrington decided to close up shop after the 2018 vintage, and although I like the Cab Franc wines we made there, I felt like we were just starting to get a handle on the fruit sources and what were the best ways of dealing with the fruit from them.
Tom - at our Cab Franc tasting we had a starting course of Vermentino, featuring Ryme of course!