Region
Spain › Valencia › Utiel-Requena › Pago Chozas Carrascal DO
Type
red · still
Grapes
Cabernet Franc
Alcohol
13.5%
Volume
750 mL
Available at
Tasting Notes(1)
4.0
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El Cabernet F is the only single-varietal wine Chozas Carrascal make under their own appellation, and the wine that most needed one: before the Vino de Pago, a pure Cabernet Franc fell outside the rules of DO Utiel-Requena. The F reads two ways. Shops take it for Franc; the family calls it the Cabernet Familiar.
It comes from the estate's least productive vines, Cabernet Franc planted in 1992 on thin limestone soil, picked by hand and sorted berry by berry. The producer's method is a concrete fermentation with two to three weeks on the skins, then malolactic in French oak barrels that have only held white wine before, and five to seven months in 220 litre barrels, up to nine in some vintages.
2016 was the second hot, dry year in a row in the district, with little more than 200 mm of rain in the first part of the season, and the family describes good yields at normal harvest dates. The 2016 made 5,950 bottles, each numbered by hand.