2016 Cabernet Franc
Santa Ynez Valley
239 cases produced
Over the last few years I have worked with different fruit sources for my Santa Ynez Valley Cabernet Franc. What I have found is that I prefer the middle of the valley sites, Happy Canyon can produce great grapes but often loses the acidity that I admire. In 2016 I purchased grapes from three different sites and conducted 5 different fermentations with variations on maceration time and stem inclusion.
The final blend included wine from two of the sites, one along Alamo Pintado Rd. just north of Solvang and the other in west edge of Happy Canyon. Roughly 15% stem inclusion was used and the wine was racked once during aging. The wine was aged 14 months in neutral oak barrels, some large 600 liter and smaller barriques. A small amount of sulfur was added after the completion of malolactic and at bottling. The wine was neither fined nor filtered.