What a 90-Point Virginia Wine Tastes Like

One of the Virginia wines that recently received 90 points from Wine Enthusiast was the Tarara 2010 Cabernet Franc. WIth so much of the wine press focused on the wineries of the Charlottesville area, I was glad to see Linden and Tarara - both Northern Virginia wineries - do so well in the recent issue of the Enthusiast.

So what does a 90 point wine produced less than two hours from Washington, DC taste like? In the case of Tarara's 2010 Cabernet Franc, it tastes like a big wine, finishes like a big wine and makes no apologies about being a big wine.

I first noticed that the color was almost exactly the same as the ruby sacrificial ring in the movie HELP! Am I using this post to reiterate my not-quite latent Beatlemania? Perhaps, but there are worse ways to spend an evening watching the Beatles and drinking Virginia wine...

Tarara's Cabernet Franc is a BIG wine in every way - big dried fruit, leather and cedar aromas, big flavors of plumb, currant, tobacco with a peaty bite, big alcohol and a big finish. It continues to be a big wine though it does open up over time.

The wine is so big that I tried it over a couple of days and on the second day, it was still big though the tannins did soften a little. This is certainly a wine that could become friends with your decanter. If you don't have one, open it at the beginning of the night and serve it second if you're entertaining.

More to the point, Cabernet Franc does really well in Virginia and Tarara's demonstrates what the grape can accomplish when given the right soil, climate and winemaker. This wine is a great example of what happens when all three come together, and the national wine press is starting to take notice.