So, this past June, Mr. B and I went to a new members reception and dinner at Chatham Hill Winery. I may have mentioned this place before but it's in a real unusual location; a commercial building near the airport. Believe it or not, though, their wine is quite good. They use grapes mainly from the Yadkin Valley (where a lot of other very decent North Carolina wineries are located) but they also import some in from California.
Anyway, at this event, they were doing what is called a barrel tasting. This is usually done when a wine is just about ready to be bottled. The wine maker decides to let folks sample it; probably to see if they fall over and die (an obvious indication that something is seriously wrong with the wine). All kidding aside, I'm sure, similar to movie studios that show their movie to test audiences to decide what ending to use, the wine maker is likely gauging the reaction of the tasters to determine what, if anything, should be done to modify the wine. Say it's a bit too bold and full of tannins; add some soothing and mellow Merlot. Or, it's too watery. Blend in some Cabernet Sauvignon that's been aged in oak for a few years.
At least this is what I suppose they are doing; it's what I'D do if I made wine!
So, after dinner was over, all present trooped into the back of the building where they have the wine in vats and barrels and where they do the bottling. On this particular occasion, they were barrel tasting a red wine, the Cabernet Franc I mentioned.
Picking up a fresh glass and moving in a line towards the barrel, we all listened to the wine maker discuss this particular wine and what he'd done to it so far. For those of you who don't know, a Cabernet Franc is a fairly mellow wine but it can have considerable depth to it. It's a bit fruity, a bit peppery, but not too much of either. For lack of a better description, it's somewhere between a Merlot and a Cabernet Sauvignon. The grape is more common to this region of the United States (I don't even think they can grow the grapes in California). It's probably the grape Thomas Jefferson used to make the majority of his wine. This makes sense, and perhaps he even brought some grapes back with him from France (where it is quite popular).
Cabernet Franc Grapes
In order to dole out the tastings, the wine maker used a device call a Wine Thief.
In essence, it's a fancy glass turkey baster. Each person held their glass near the barrel opening, tilted, and the wine maker shot the sample into the glass using the thief.
Mr. B and I swirled and sniffer and observed color (a very nice ruby red) and slowly sipped. Our eyes probably rolled back into our heads in ecstasy. While we were near orgasmic over the wine, others were looking like they were going to hurl. Now, why would that be, do you wonder? Because you have to understand that most North Carolina wineries are forced to make sweetie wines because that is what most people from North Carolina like to drink (they grew up on sweet cloying grapes like the Muscadine). Hey, some of those sweetie wines are not bad (as I've blogged about before) but some of them, well, you may as well drink Strawberry Hill from Boone's Farm or Annie Green Springs or the like (it would be cheaper, anyway).
Chatham Hill Winery is no different; they offer a variety of very sweet fruit wines like Blueberry, Peach, Raspberry and Pomegranate (this one actually isn't too bad; it'd take pretty good mixed with a bit of Prosecco or Champagne).
So, many of the people in that room with us that evening were NOT fans of dry red wine.
So much the better, we said to ourselves, as this meant they wouldn't be rushing in to buy up the Cabernet Franc if it ever got bottled. More for us!
A week later, we took Mr. B's parents to the winery. Yey! They were barrel tasting the Cabernet Franc again! Mrs. Senior B enjoyed it but Mr. Senior B is more into Rieslings and the like. But, he nicely got a sample of the wine so that we could split it, which meant almost a full glass each of this beauty!
Ok, I'm rambling. The point to all of this is, when Mr. B went to pick up our wine club shipment the other night, lo and behold in the package was a bottle of 2006 Cabernet Franc.
SWEET!
So, tomorrow, we're gonna head over to Chatham Hill Winery and buy as much of it as they'll let us (they have limited quantities) while it's at its discounted price.
Mrs. B
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