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In the fall of 2004 we were sitting in one of our favorite restaurants...Mon Ami Gabi in Las Vegas. Outside on the patio it was a delightfully warm day suitable for a bottle of rose. Fortunately for us there was a bottle of rose from Chinion. We were intrigued. The pale pink color of the wine suited its mild fruit flavors and body. We thought, why not with our Napa Valley fruit? We must admit it was never our intention to make rose, but this wine definitely had us thinking.
During the fall of 2005 we started toying with the idea of a rose. With a bit of luck we found a small stainless steel tank to use to ferment the wine. We pressed off after about 72 hours and went straight to the tank to begin a slow, cool fermentation. Of course, that plan only worked for a couple of weeks. We then had to move our still fermenting juice into neutral French oak to finish fermentation.
The result was more than we had hoped for. Our very colorful fruit was much pinker than its French counterpart. It also had more fruit flavors. A benefit of moving to neutral French oak was that the wine didn't have oak characteristics, but did have a fullness to it that we would not have achieved with only stainless steel.
In 2005 we started with a mere 92 cases. We graduated to 94 cases in 2006. We hope to set a record in 2007 with approximately 125 cases. Production will always be small due to the size of the vineyard and our commitment to our Cabernet Franc program.
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