Female: So Brian we have a cabernet franc here, 2005 cabernet franc reserve that smells amazing. Maybe you could tell us; what’s the difference between a reserved cab franc and a regular cab franc. What do you do differently?

Brian: The term “reserve” is obviously dedicated to wines of superior quality and in fact the term “reserve” if I'm not mistaken is something that we take very, very seriously. As an example to that in the 2006 we experienced some relatively cool temperatures and the quality of the wine I felt didn’t necessarily warrant having the reserve designation. And so we actually declassified the majority of the wines and the only reserved wine that we have in 2006 in terms of the reds is our 2006 cellar reserve.

And so, reserve is something that we take very, very seriously. It’s usually a state grown fruit or fruit that has been grown by contractor growers in which we’ve had a significant history with. The casing point is the Rosina Vineyard in Rome and 00:01:04 who has been producing grapes in his vineyard for a great number of years and the famous 1998 Meritage that we produced at Milanta Sage was grown in his vineyard.

Female: Which I have a bottle of.

Brian: Oh wonderful. Keep it. Keep it. And so, it’s vineyards in which we have an intimate knowledge of. And all of the decisions right from the moment pruning begins and in fact, even before that, all of the decisions that take place in the vineyard are leading to a an end point. Usually the fruit is brought in from vineyards that have had a measured amount of crop production, not so significant that the vine becomes out of balance so we certainly have a crop production within those vineyards, hand picked, hand sorted usually. And then from there, brought into in the oak where we have the opportunity now and in the reserve cellar that we have in order to be able to lay wines down in the cellars for as much as 36 months or so.

This particular wine that we have in front of us was in the barrel for about 28 months in brand new and one and two season frontal prose. And so the 2005 Meritage was absolutely spectacular. We are so blessed. And we saw a beautiful spring where the grapes were developing beautifully along the process. We had a great, clean flowering; there is no cold temperatures, no rain during the flowering which allowed the fruit to again develop beautifully and the vintage itself had all the appropriate amount of heat units and the appropriate amount of rain and moisture and so all of that comes together to produce and incredibly balanced wine. And with the addition of some 28 months of aging in the cellars, this wine has turned out absolutely beautiful.

Female: I would say 2005 was definitely a really warm year. I bet 2005 to be a very nice warm year.

Brian: Yes. As was 2007, the difference between 2005 and 2007 however is that we had the appropriate amount of rainfall in 2005 we had the appropriate amount of moisture and the vines were not distressed as much and so that allowed them to go into the winter much more healthy and the resulting winter was something notorious for frontier vines. We’re blessed with Saharan summers and Siberian winters and so those winters sometimes have a bit of a challenge for us and the vines need to go into the winter very, very healthy. And so, 2005 was a vintage wine.