Description
Former Evening Land manager and master sommelier Larry Stone has teamed up with Napa winery investor David Honig and legendary Burgundian wine producer Dominique Lafon to launch Lingua Franca. This oenological dream-team is the wine industry equivalent of The Traveling Wilburys – a powerhouse of talent which seeks to draw from each of their unique talents to produce wines of distinction and excellence.
With the 2016 vintage came the first viable commercial harvest of fruit from the on-site Estate Vineyard, so this release is a little slice of Oregon history. The site is nestled into the East-facing slopes of the Eola-Amity Hills with some remarkable neighbors: Seven Springs, Lone Star, and Bieze just to name a few.
What really stood out about this wine to me was a super sweet/earthy/roasty note that really reminded me of beets. That, and the texture is just absolutely flawless with powdery tannins and slick mouthwatering acidity.
From the Winery:
The vintage marks the first release from our Estate, a vineyard site that has been coveted for decades and finally planted by Larry Stone. It is beautifully located in the heart of the Eola-Amity Hills, dry farmed organically on Jory and Nekia soils. The wine is medium intense, complex with floral, mineral, flint and red cherry, black plum fruit tones, and a long finish. The fruit is sorted in the vineyard, then sorted by hand, finally by a special destemmer/sorter, handled so as to preserve the terroir of this remarkable site.
