The Farmhouse California Red 2019 is a blend of Zinfandel, Mourvèdre, Carignane, Syrah, Petite Sirah, and Grenache sourced from vineyards in California. Farmhouse California is one of Cline Family Cellars’ line of wine.
Cline is a family-owned winery founded in 1981 that specializes in sustainably farmed vineyards and wine. One of the things I admire about Cline Family Cellars is that they produce single-vineyard wines that sell for fifty, sixty, or seventy dollars but they also make excellent value-priced wines.
The Farmhouse in the brand name refers to an old schoolhouse at Green String Farm where natural, sustainable farming practices are researched and taught. It is a world-class destination for sustainable practices.
I choose the Farmhouse California Red 2019 because a was looking for an inexpensive (I found it on sale for $8.99), honest Red wine. I was not looking for fancy production techniques and stats, just a glass of good tasting wine.
The Farmhouse California Red 2019 gave me a little something extra for my money. The grape blend is an interesting array of varietals that originate in southern France, along with good old USA Zinfandel (it is actually from the Mediterranean). This Red blend will not taste like the same old same old.
The blend was aged with French oak (40% new oak) for 8 months, which is a pretty lengthy aging process for a 2019 vintage. The technical notes never say the word “barrel”, just French oak. You see that a lot with value-priced wine and I am never sure exactly what that means. Were no barrels used, there are different ways to get oak conditioning?
With an inexpensive wine if oak barrels were used or not isn’t particularly important. If whatever they do work and tastes natural and right is all that I am concerned with. So, the Farmhouse California Red 2019 is an interesting blend of sustainably farmed grapes and is vegan friendly, too. The alcohol content is 13.5%.
Farmhouse California Red 2019 Tasting Notes
The color is a see-thru, but just barely purple. The nose is ripe fruit, with some dark chocolate notes, black pepper, spice, plum, raspberry, and blueberry.
This is a medium-bodied bright, fruit-forward wine. It tastes of blueberry, Snickers chocolate, plum, a brush of dusty spice, and black pepper. The mid-palate adds tart cherry, orange zest, and cranberry.
The tannins are soft and smooth and the acidity gives a shine to all the flavors. This is a tasty wine.
The Summary
- The Farmhouse California Red 2019 is a solid, honest, tasty, value-priced red blend.
- Expensive wine is not good and inexpensive wine is somehow bad. Value-priced wine is made in a different style than the expensive stuff.
- Value wines can be bright, alive, and juicy, with fresh flavors, it is a very appealing style.
- The Farmhouse California Red 2019 is an excellent example of value wine.
