Replicating a 100 point wine...this season’s plan
- Thread starter NorCal
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Very interesting thread @NorCal and timely for me. I am debating whether to add Cab Franc to a 132 vine vineyard. This vineyard was 100% Cab Sauv but has dead zones. I replanted 22 vines in Merlot and was debating to myself to add 20 vines of Cab Franc. But does Cab Franc add enough difference to a wine blend to offset the trouble of dealing with the little amount of fruit 20 vines produce? I will probably just add to the Merlot, but I thought it worthwhile to get your opinion
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NorCal
Senior Member
I love cab franc and is a wonderful companion to cab sauv. I would totally do it.
Perhaps Petite Verdot. Can add depth, complexity with limited acreage, mixing ratios.
What is your expected yield? I assume more than a carboy, so you might ferment separately and blend into the Cabernet Sauvignon.
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My educated guess on 22 mature VSP trained merlot vines with 12 spurs each is 175 lbs. With 90 lbs per 5 gallons of wine that gets me to almost 2 carboys of merlot. I like merlot, so having more is not a problem for me. I am leaning towards filling the remaining 14 sites with Petit Verdot. It has a lot of bang for the buck as a blender. And if I get the proportions dialed in, maybe I will make a field blend and call it good.
My wines from last fall include a batch that is one 36 lb lug each of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot, and Malbec. Most of this was used in 2 field blends, one with Merlot, one with Merlot & Zinfandel. I reserved a gallon of the blend for comparison, and on its own, it's delightful. [My reds are field blends as I do not have the capacity to do what I'd really like to do, although I'm very happy with my results.]
Food for thought: Use your open capacity to plant a variety of reds, and ferment them as a field blend -- for blending into your Merlot and/or Cabernet Sauvignon, as needed. Bottle whatever's left as a single wine (should be interesting) or keep a carboy for use with the next year's wine.
I'm a big advocate of Franc in California. In the Foothills at least it produces much better wine than either C. Sauvignon or Merlot, for reasons I can't quite understand (it's considered the more cold hardy of the three, so I assumed it would hate California). It has a lot of varietal character here, more so than in France or New York from my experience. I made about 36 gallons of Franc this year from grapes grown in Fiddletown (Amador County). It had so much Franc character that it really needed to be blended. This wa something I had read about in Bordeaux, where a little Franc goes a long way, but I had never experienced this with the grapes I made wine from. It's not fruity at all -it has a very pronounced "cedar" smell. I noted this both here in Amador and also in Sonoma County Francs, so I think it's a California thing. I ended up blending my Francs with Mourvedre and Malbec -it's going to be a super wine, I think.
I bought a bottle each of Cab Franc and Petit Verdot varietal wine from Cuda Ridge winery in Livermore CA, which resembles the microclimate where I am growing grapes, so that I can do a taste test with a few people. Then I threw in some rosés of Cab Sauv, Merlot and Malbec to determine how I feel about doing a saignée with these. I am accustomed to the Pinot and Gamay style of rosé. It will be a fun week! And my apologies to @NorCal for stealing your thread! I will start a new one.
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NorCal
Senior Member
I've been waiting to enter this wine in the California State Fair. The last home wine making competition they had was in 2019. They recently announced that they are doing the competition again in 2023! I still have a case of this Cab Franc Blend left, so it will be entered in the competition for sure. The results won't be until the end of May and I will post the judges comments and results here.
@NorCal - this is a timely post. Two nights ago I had a bottle of my iteration of the same wine. I was actually blown away at how good it is. I was mentioning my reaction to the wine to my good friend and business partner Drew. He said, "that's really funny. I had a bottle of that wine last night, and I was blown away at how good it is."
Right now, I'm planning on putting this blend together again at bottling my 2022 wines...
Right now, I'm planning on putting this blend together again at bottling my 2022 wines...
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NorCal
Senior Member
The 100 point Cab Franc received a Silver at the State Fair. All 3 judges scored it a Silver. I think it is the best wine I’ve made. I have a handful of bottles left and it is still good, but not as good as it was a few years ago. The aging was noted by one of the judges, so I think overall it was a fair evaluation.
I really enjoyed this thread and I have a question. Most high scoring red wines with this blend can cellar for many years. Why did yours trail off so soon? Is it a different approach you took to target being drinkable sooner? Equipment limitations regarding oxidation? Really curious from where you think the divergence would arise.
Numerous sources state that 90% of the world's wine production is intended for consumption within 3 years. The number of heavy reds that have lifespans more than 5 years is a fraction of that remaining 10%, and far less will last 10 years.
The lifespan is a result of ABV, acid, tannin, body, sugar, and other factors including varietal, yearly growing conditions, yeast strain(s), vinification conditions, storage conditions, etc. The highest rated wineries in the world cannot consistently produce the highest rated wines, and when they do the grapes used are cherry picked so only the highest quality are used.
Anyone could follow @NorCal's playbook (he provided detailed explanations) and produce 5 identical wines in 5 years. Except they won't be identical. I expect all will be of above average quality, but the differences from year to year are likely to be significant. Note that wineries that produce seemingly identical wines from year to year have the ability to blend hundreds or thousands of barrels to produce consistent qualities.
Something else to consider is that the forum members who make heavy reds are not representative of the world's red wine makers. As a group we are making longer lasting wines, while around the world the similar wines are made for closer consumption. Plus the wine press waxes on about the long lasting wines, making it seem like they are the norm and not the exception. That's a long winded way of saying we are not normal.
I look forward to @NorCal's thoughts.
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NorCal
Senior Member
It is a valid point to ask why this wine didn't age. I make on average 150 gallons a year, so there are a lot of bottles coming in and a lot going out and not a lot of room to cellar. I make wines that I am partial to (depth of fruit flavor, no RS, complex, low oak, low tannin, approachable without food).
In the Sierra Foothills, we do not have the diurnal shift that a Napa does. The hot days and warm evenings during the peak growing season cause the red grape to have far less acidity and regularly approach 3.8 - 4.1 pH. A common practice is to adjust with tartaric during fermentation. Here are my notes from the 2019 harvest of the Cab Franc that went into the blend: harvest 900 lbs, 26.7 brix, 4.06 pH, pulled 10 gallons of juice out, added 1 pound tartaric, 50ppm so2.
I have found that even with the heavy addition of tartaric, the pH of the wine will tend to wander back to its happy spot, as it drops acid during mlf and aging. I had in my notes after press that the pH was "between 3.5-3.6", but I would be surprised if it ended in that range, probably closer to 3.8. With these high-pH wines, I will not add the amount of SO2 that is called for in the chart. At 3.8 it would call for adding 80ppm and when aging a wine for 18 months, I believe that much SO2 will do more harm to the wine than good, but does affect the wine's ability to age.
The combination of high pH, low tannin, low SO2 makes for a wine that doesn't age well. In the end, the wine remains the best wine I ever made, drinkable the day it was bottled and I would say 95% of the 300 bottles were consumed within the first year, so aging wasn't a factor.
In the Sierra Foothills, we do not have the diurnal shift that a Napa does. The hot days and warm evenings during the peak growing season cause the red grape to have far less acidity and regularly approach 3.8 - 4.1 pH. A common practice is to adjust with tartaric during fermentation. Here are my notes from the 2019 harvest of the Cab Franc that went into the blend: harvest 900 lbs, 26.7 brix, 4.06 pH, pulled 10 gallons of juice out, added 1 pound tartaric, 50ppm so2.
I have found that even with the heavy addition of tartaric, the pH of the wine will tend to wander back to its happy spot, as it drops acid during mlf and aging. I had in my notes after press that the pH was "between 3.5-3.6", but I would be surprised if it ended in that range, probably closer to 3.8. With these high-pH wines, I will not add the amount of SO2 that is called for in the chart. At 3.8 it would call for adding 80ppm and when aging a wine for 18 months, I believe that much SO2 will do more harm to the wine than good, but does affect the wine's ability to age.
The combination of high pH, low tannin, low SO2 makes for a wine that doesn't age well. In the end, the wine remains the best wine I ever made, drinkable the day it was bottled and I would say 95% of the 300 bottles were consumed within the first year, so aging wasn't a factor.
@NorCal, Excellent summary of the situation!
NorCal made the correct choice in using his CF when it was really good. As a person who's had wines pass their expiration date, I heartily advise people that they are far better drinking a wine too young than too old. The difference?
When drinking a young wine, we might say, "the tannins are still harsh in this one and need softening."
When drinking an expired wine, we might say, "BLEAH!"
Note that for once I didn't use an emoji ...
It may be that as a group, we get wayyyy too hung up on longevity. Drinkability should be our real goal.
NorCal made the correct choice in using his CF when it was really good. As a person who's had wines pass their expiration date, I heartily advise people that they are far better drinking a wine too young than too old. The difference?
When drinking a young wine, we might say, "the tannins are still harsh in this one and need softening."
When drinking an expired wine, we might say, "BLEAH!"
Note that for once I didn't use an emoji ...
Another thing regarding aging to consider is that the wine simply tastes different and it would be odd for everyone to share the same preference. Thanks for the info on the ph and growing environment. It seems like you have a happy coincidence of living where the best expression of the grapes you have access to aligns with the desires of your winemaking and palate. Do you find others such as local commercial vineyards using the same grapes in the same way or do they adjust to allow the wine to have a longer life?
I see that someone else is experiencing this pH shift also. One of my 2021 wines that I entered into a competition August 2023 was judged tart, and I agree. I tasted the same wine again last night and the obvious tang of the tartaric acid addition is gone. Buffers will try to pull the wine pH to 3.65. I do not have access to my meter at the moment but it is on my list to test the current pH of my 2021 wines.
Something to keep in mind is that pH is a measure of how acidic or basic a substance is, based on the concentration of hydrogen ions. My understanding is that while pH and TA are usually opposite, e.g., one goes up, the other goes down -- it's not a guarantee as pH and TA are measurements of different things.
I've spoken with a few winemakers who discount pH as being too fickle. While I don't discount pH, I do keep in mind what is measures, in contrast to TA.
In that light, having the pH increase in a wine that is bottled is not a surprise. The wine is settled and as it ages the level of ionization reduces, e.g., the H+ ions recombine with the acid. [Chem 101/102 are a LONG time in the past, so I may not be saying this correctly]
It's also why I am more relaxed about pH levels prior, during, and after fermentation.
