Replicating a 100 point wine...this season’s plan

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My Son-In-Law is a wine drinker and we got him his favorite bottle (prisoner cab sauv ~$50). I also gave him a bottle of my cab franc blend and ask that he do a blind tasting. Video link:

wow! that’s gotta be satisfying. congrats on making such an exceptional wine @NorCal 🏆
 
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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Very interesting thread @NorCal and timely for me. I am debating whether to add Cab Franc to a 110 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
I love cab franc and is a wonderful companion to cab sauv. I would totally do it.
 
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 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.
 
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
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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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...
 
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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.
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.
 

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