Winemaker Notes
The 2015 Winston Hill appears deep and dark and exudes light aromas of vanilla, cream, and caramel. Black fruits, espresso, and cocoa notes follow and give way to a seamless wash of the palate. Fresh berry lingers on this focused and balanced wine with incredible length.
Blend: 81% Cabernet Sauvignon, 7% Merlot, 6% Cabernet Franc, 6% Petit Verdot
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
Similarly inky colored as the 2014, the 2015 Winston Hill Red Wine checks in as a blend of 81% Cabernet Sauvignon, 7% Merlot and the balance Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot that spent 21 months in 75% new French oak. It offers more graphite and minerality, with gorgeous notes of blueberries, crushed violets, lead pencil and hints of licorice. Deep, elegant and layered, with a profound textural elegance, it has terrific mid-palate depth, building, fine tannin, and a killer finish that won't quit. It's a gorgeous wine any way you look at it. It's going to benefit from 2-4 years of bottle age and keep for two decades or more.
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Connoisseurs' Guide
This remarkably rich and concentrated wine impresses equally for its potency and polish, and it is uncommonly well-mannered for one of its ample substance and stuffing. It leads with a very deep nose of currants, black olives, dark chocolate and sweet oak and, to a "tee," follows suit once in the mouth with ever-expanding flavors that effortlessly extend past its considerable, comparatively gruff varietal tannins that very decisively warn off hasty drinking. Allow for a minimum of five or six years of age here, and know that its chances of continuing to grow and find added grace for another five or six after that are as certain as certain can be.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2015 Winston Hill Proprietary Red is deep purple-black in color with a nose of blackberry, blackcurrants, tar and earth with touches of garrigue, olives and herbs. Medium to full-bodied, the palate is firm and taut yet very chewy and a bit hard, finishing uncomplicated and clipped.
Since the founding of the winery in 1992, Frank Family Vineyards has poured their passion for land, grape growing and winemaking into each and every bottle of Frank Family Vineyards wine. Today they own over 450 acres of the finest vineyard land checkerboarded throughout the Napa Valley. This allows them to control quality and cultivate sustainably on their own estate and enables winemaker, Todd Graff, to blend perfectly balanced wines. With a commitment to crafting the finest representation of Napa Valley wines, Frank Family Vineyards hopes to create a legacy for generations to come.
With hundreds of red grape varieties to choose from, winemakers have the freedom to create a virtually endless assortment of blended red wines. In many European regions, strict laws are in place determining the set of varieties that may be used, but in the New World, experimentation is permitted and encouraged resulting in a wide variety of red wine styles. Blending can be utilized to enhance balance or create complexity, lending different layers of flavors and aromas. For example, a red wine blend variety that creates a fruity and full-bodied wine would do well combined with one that is naturally high in acidity and tannins. Sometimes small amounts of a particular variety are added to boost color or aromatics. Blending can take place before or after fermentation, with the latter, more popular option giving more control to the winemaker over the final qualities of the wine.
How to Serve Red Wine
A common piece of advice is to serve red wine at “room temperature,” but this suggestion is imprecise. After all, room temperature in January is likely to be quite different than in August, even considering the possible effect of central heating and air conditioning systems. The proper temperature to aim for is 55° F to 60° F for lighter-bodied reds and 60° F to 65° F for fuller-bodied wines.
How Long Does Red Wine Last?
Once opened and re-corked, a bottle stored in a cool, dark environment (like your fridge) will stay fresh and nicely drinkable for a day or two. There are products available that can extend that period by a couple of days. As for unopened bottles, optimal storage means keeping them on their sides in a moderately humid environment at about 57° F. Red wines stored in this manner will stay good – and possibly improve – for anywhere from one year to multiple decades. Assessing how long to hold on to a bottle is a complicated science. If you are planning long-term storage of your reds, seek the advice of a wine professional.
The Rutherford sub-region of Napa Valley centers on the town of Rutherford and covers some of Napa Valley’s finest vineyard real estate, spanning from the Mayacamas in the west, to the Vaca Mountains on the other side of the valley.
Inside of the Rutherford AVA, bordering the Mayacamas, is a stretch of uplands called the Rutherford Bench. (These bench lands technically run the length of Oakville as well). Mountain runoff creates deep, well-drained, alluvial soils on the bench, giving vine roots plenty of reason to permeate deep into the ground. The result is wine with great structure and complexity.
Rutherford Cabernet Sauvingons and Bordeaux Blends garner substantial attention for their enticing fragrances of dusty earth and dried herbs, broad and juicy mid-palates and lush and fine-grained tannins. The sub-appellation claims some of the valley’s most prized vineyards today, namely Caymus, Rubicon and Beckstoffer Georges III.
It is also home to Napa’s most influential and historic personalities. Thomas Rutherford, responsible for the appellation's name, made serious investments here in grape growing and wine production between the years of 1850 to 1880. Gustave Niebaum purchased a large swath of land and completed his winery in 1887, calling it “Inglenook.” Today this remains the oldest bonded winery in California. Georges Latour founded Beaulieu Vineyard in 1900, making it the oldest continuous winery in the state. Latour also hired the famous enologist, André Tchelistcheff, a man credited for single-handedly defining the modern Napa winemaking style.