Balanced, Elegant Wine To Share

Frank Family Vineyards Napa Valley Chardonnay

Cost: $32-35

What: Frank Family Vineyards Napa Valley Chardonnay, California, 2008

Frank Family Chardonnay has become known for its balanced, elegant style. It opens with citrus and peach aromas. You anticipate the great fruit in the bottle and you’re not disappointed from the first sip to the last. It’s a complex wine, with tastes of apple, peach, citrus, nuts and vanilla. There are no hard edges, only one delicious flavor sliding into the next. The wine spent 11 months in French oak barrels, so it has plenty of backbone, but the oak never intrudes. This is a wine to share with good friends.

Winery: Founded in 1992 Frank Family Vineyards has bought 200 acres of land scattered throughout Napa Valley. This allows them to control the grapes from vine to bottle. Rich Frank was a long-time Disney executive in Hollywood when he started visiting Napa Valley in the late 1980s. He ended up buying the Kornell Champagne Cellars on the site of historic Larkmead Winery, later buying out partner and friend Koerner Rombauer. The winery offers a full range of varietals, including some incredible sparkling wines. If you ever get to Napa Valley, it’s worth a trip to Calistoga in the northern end, to see the Frank Family tasting room. It’s a lively place, with tasting room manager Dennis Zablosky engaging the guests in conversation, jokes, wine information and history. Visitors who come in feel like they’ve rediscovered a long-lost friend.
Tasting rooms usually are fun, but this one goes above and beyond most. They operated for years in an old building that was like walking through a shotgun house. But the folks who worked there made it fun and informative Now they are in a state-of-the art building, so it should be even better.

Goes with: This is a great sipping wine, but it really comes alive with food. I had it with barbecued chicken with macaroni and cheese. It was very good, mainly because I went light on the barbecue sauce. It was even better with dessert of crepes with fresh fruit and whipped cream. It would go well with light fish dishes, chicken or turkey with cream sauces and hearty cheeses.