Francis Ford Coppola R & B Cabernet Sauvignon

Wine has always played an important role in the Coppola family. Stories concerning wine have cropped up on many occasions in the family memoirs, and it's exactly that legacy which the Francis Ford Coppola winery wishes to draw on with the Rosso & Bianco collection. This Cabernet Sauvignon, together with a single varietal Chardonnay, a Shiraz and a Pinot Grigio, constitutes one of the cellar's first wine collections, a range that aims to put back good wine onto the everyday table.

The grapes for this Cabernet Sauvignon mainly grow in Lodi and Solano County, where the temperature contrasts between warm days and cool nights are considerable. This difference slows down the ripening process, allowing the grapes to gain in complexity and balance. The resultant wine is juicy and tannic, but also accessible. It has a spicy aroma with fresh herbaceous and balsamic hints. It's a dark colour, Picota cherry, and it has an unusually complex nose for a wine that intends being the winery's starter. It smells of cherries and black plums, liquorice, violets and toasty oak, tobacco leaf, stone powder... Its palate is mature, yet also fresh, juicy and with a touch of liqueur, nicely tensioned by a well-judged acidity and cloaked in the ruggedness of some perfect tannins. A fruity, spicy hint accompanies its long finish.

The Francis Ford Coppola R & B Cabernet Sauvignon roundly refutes all those who reject Californian wines for being too commercial or mature, showing there exists a California with its own character that has much to say in the wine world. Without a doubt Francis's forebears, the ones who sneaked around the family winery to steal and eat the grapes, would be very proud of the present-day wines made by the Francis Ford Coppola Winery.