Like butter biscuits with blackberry jam, this wine is super pretty, a dark purply red that shows off grilled plum, mulberries, black cherries, white soy, brown sugar and baking spices. This is bold and elegant with dusty tannins.
I want to eat mushrooms, duck, green pea risotto, fried rice… this wine makes me hungry.
The winemaking on this is, according to Tyler, “we just try not to F it up.”
2019 Halcyon Cabernet Franc, Camino Alto Vineyard
$35.00
Camino Alto Vineyard is the Mecca of El Dorado County. Out by Placerville, it used to be a pear orchard before it was planted to grapes in 1988. Ron Mansfield is the farmer and he is one of those people that is just totally revered by the people who know him. Sitting high at 2900 feet, the soils are red and volcanic, decomposed red clay, and are mostly dry farmed. They only get watered twice a year! The vines are huge, and pruned like fruit trees. Tyler said they remind him of the soils in Kuai in the bunkers – just deep red dusty ancient clays.