1999 La Jota Howell Mountain Cabernet Franc

This 100% Cabernet Franc wine comes from an exceptional little vineyard planted in 1976 next to our century-old stone winery on Howell Mountain. Grafted onto resistant St. George rootstock, it escaped the ravages of phylloxera to become one of the oldest Cabernet Franc vineyards in Napa County. The old vines self-regulate so we don't need to thin crop, pull leaves or in any other way adjust the grape-to-canopy ratio. Year after year, the grapes are intensely flavored and beautifully balanced. Not many wineries produce Cabernet Franc and this wine definitely captures the essence of La Jota terroir. We hand harvested the Cabernet Franc into small lug boxes to prevent crushing, and then carefully hand-sorted the grapes at our winery to ensure optimum quality. After destemming and light crushing, the must was cold-soaked for gentle color, flavor and tannin extraction. To bridle the "mountain tannins", Chris added small amounts of oxygen into the wine with three "splashing pump-overs" during the primary fermentation in stainless steel tanks and with five rackings during barrel aging. In-barrel malolactic fermentation rounded the acidity and softly integrated the vanillin character of the new oak barrels. The wine was bottled without fining or filtration to retain its full complexity.