Winemaker Notes
This 2020 Reserve Cabernet Franc is an elegant, rich, yet soft wine. With fleshy black cherry, blackberry, and spicy oak aromas. This wine can be enjoyed now or cellared for a special occasion. On the palate, there are succulent, dark fruit flavors of plum, black cherry, and a hint of sweet oak. It offers a smooth, medium finish. It is also vegan-friendly.
Serve at room temperature with grilled meats, lamb chops and strong cheeses. It is also an excellent choice for chocolate desserts such as a molten chocolate cake, bittersweet chocolate mousse, or a simple plate of homemade fudge.
Blend: 85% Cabernet Franc, 15% Cabernet Sauvignon
Critical Acclaim
All VintagesDusty and mineral, with scents of licorice root, blackberry, horehound, violets and olive skin, this is concentrated and deeply flavored. It feels ample middle, then precise and firm on the finish, with fine tannins.
Aromas and flavors suggest red cherry, red plum, wild strawberry, boysenberry, tarragon, basil, toasted wood and chocolate, with hints of leather, black pepper and crushed violets. Coarse, chalky tannins coat the mouth, but are well met by the concentrated fruit structure.
The story of Ironstone Vineyards started in the hands of John Kautz, a young row crop farmer from Lodi who saw the future in growing wine grapes in Lodi. With 12 acres in 1948, John quickly built an excellent reputation as a premium wine grape supplier, amassing over 5,000 acres of grapes in Lodi and the Sierra Foothills and eventually becoming one of the top ten wine grape growers in California.
In 1988, John, his wife Gail and their children dedicated themselves to the creation of a wine of their own. While still maintaining grape sales to top wineries around the world, they brought award-winning winemaker Steve Millier aboard to launch Kautz wines, which would evolve into Ironstone Vineyards, a wine brand dedicated to the production of exceptional wines of unparalleled quality, outstanding value and everyday approachability.
In 1989, using dynamite, pick axes and shovels, a crew of miners carved through limestone and Calaveras Schist Rock on Gail’s family ranch in Murphys, California and fashioned the site of Ironstone’s wine aging caverns, which in the beginning, also served as the facility’s first tasting room., Ironstone Wines and the Ironstone Winery have each grown and become famous in their own way. John, Gail and each of their four children - Stephen, Kurt, Jack, and Joan - remain actively involved in the growth of both the winery facility and the wine brand.
Originally a source of oenological sustenance for gold-seeking miners of the mid-1800s, the Sierra Foothills was the first region in California to produce wines from European grape varieties. Located between Sacramento and the Nevada border, this area’s immigrant settlers chose to forgo growing the then-ubiquitous Mission grape and instead brought with them superior vines from the Old World to plant alongside mining camps.
Zinfandel has been the most important variety of this region since its inception, taking on a spicy character with brambly fruit and firm structure. Amador and El Dorado counties, benefiting from the presence of volcanic and granite soils, are home to the best examples. Bold, robust Rhône Blends and Barbera are also important regional specialties.
Cabernet Franc, a proud parent of Cabernet Sauvignon, is the subtler and more delicate of the Cabernets. Today Cabernet Franc produces outstanding single varietal wines across the wine-producing world. Somm Secret—One of California's best-kept secrets is the Happy Canyon appellation of Santa Barbara. Here Cabernet Franc shines as a single varietal wine or in blends, expressing sumptuous fruit, savory aromas and polished tannins.