A Napa Valley TraditionThe first winery in Napa Valley to use Burgundy ’s centuries-old method of fermenting Chardonnay with wild, native vineyard yeasts, Franciscan introduced Cuvée Sauvage in 1987.And when the law only allowed vintners to call their proprietary blends red table wines, Franciscan pioneered the campaign to find a name for these wines and give our winemakers the freedom to make wines like Magnificat, one of Napa Valley’s first Bordeaux-style meritage blends.
Franciscan Winemaker Larry Levin is fanatical about ripeness. Every harvest, he walks the vineyards daily, tasting the grapes and waiting to pick until the crop is perfectly ripe. He looks beyond sugar content and chemistry in the grape, tasting for maturity in the grape skins and seeds. Larry’s insistence on ripeness is what gives Franciscan’s Napa Valley wines their hallmark supple tannins and rich fruit character.
Please visit our web site at http://www.franciscan.com.