Drinking the 2005 Owen Roe Cabernet Franc Rosa Mystica Block
About a month ago this particular bottle of wine fell into my lap, so to speak. I haven’t had much wine lately, to be honest. I had some sort of bizarre overnight fever this weekend that, coupled with a persistent woodpecker just behind my bedroom wall, sort of knocked me out for a day or two.
But after drinking plenty of fluids this past Sunday, I felt ready to give another bottle a try. And when I looked through my miniature wine fridge, I found this Owen Roe release.
Owen Roe is an interesting winery. They hand number their vineyard-designated bottles; in this case, I got bottle #3290 of 6756, which equates to 563 cases excluding special format bottlings. And what did I get, exactly? A bottle of 2005 Cabernet Franc, the “Rosa Mystica” release, made from four separate blocks of grapes grown mainly in the Yakima Valley region of Eastern Washington State. The fourth block is located along the Columbia River in Alderdale, which is near Lake Umatilla and about 30 miles east of the wonderfully named Drano Lake.
I love Cabernet Franc, and I feel as if this wine is a bit of a lost art in the US these days. Yes, it’s true, there are some good American-made Cabernet Franc wines out there, such as the York Creek releases. But I’m always up for a 100% varietal bottling of an American Cabernet Franc. I cut my teeth, so to speak, on the slightly more jammy, more blackberry Cabernet Franc wines of Australia, particularly those of Paracombe (one of my favorite wineries). So how does the Owen Roe stack up?
- Aroma: Smells a lot like violets, warm blueberries, buttered cobbler crust, and alcohol (at first, but the alcohol mellows after a while). Opens up into a more refined bouquet after some decanting.
- Flavor: Tastes much like the bouquet would suggest - buttered, hot blueberries with violets. Lots of tannins and alcoholic heat right after opening. But after about 45 minutes, this wine opens into a rosy, raspberry treat with better structure and more integrated tannins and acid.
- General impression: A good wine, particularly with salty, flavorful food, but is it worth $40+ per bottle? Probably not.
Overall, the Owen Roe Cabernet Franc is a good wine, but it’s a little expensive for what you get. For this much money, I would prefer to have a nice Oregon Pinot Noir, I think. Washington State Cabernet Franc isn’t quite worth it, I’m afraid, although recent trends in Washington wines seem to indicate that $40-$50 is a fair price for a Yakima-area wine. That scares me a little as Washington has had a reputation for affordable, high quality wines. Judging by this wine, I think the prices are already climbing a bit too high in some cases.