2016 B Cellars Cabernet Franc Beckstoffer Dr. Crane Vineyard

Community Tasting Notes (8) Avg Score: 96.4 points

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  10/10/2023 - Mark1npt Likes this wine: 97 Points

  Last one of these in the cellar. Been a few years since my last bottle but having another nice night with the HMCs at Chops so why not? Carol is finally able to enjoy a glass again and she'll love it!
  
  Dark garnet in the glass at the pnp into a decanter. Sampled a sip and bingo.....it's about ready to go so back into the bottle to take to the restaurant 2 hours from now. Nose of cherry liqueur, slight herbal quality. Dense red fruit with power. This hit everyone's sweet spot tonight, especially Carol's. Continued to drink beautifully throughout the 2+ hours at dinner. Towards the end it developed a wonderful cinnamon component on the palate as well. How I wish I had more of these......just beautifully done by Kirk Venge and B Cellars!

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  12/3/2021 - sfwinelover1 wrote:

  Just another evening of good wine and cheer (Chilly Noe Valley): Another guest to the tasting via the ever generous Cyclist. Giant on the nose and palate with cherry-berry liquer, sweet spice, dark florals, wet earth and just a hint of bittersweet chocolate. Deep purple, full bodied, medium to thick legs. Integrated tannins, virtually no perceptible acidity, and, oh yes, there is heat. Medium+ complexity, high persistence and intensity. Ok, full disclosure here: I struggle with Cab Franc as a lead player (although I love the way a bit interacts with CS, and I did just give a 99 to the 88% Cerro Sur) and I'm a Kirk Venge skeptic; even though sfwl is always out there to challenge his assumptions, this wine on this night did nothing to make me change my mind. There's some interesting stuff going on here--not that much of it seems to have anything to do with what I associate with CF--but everything feels overwhelmed by booziness and untempered sweet fruit. Surely, this would have benefited from more air, and while I'm always reluctant to believe that these sweet, high alcohol wines will be something more in the future than what they are now, who knows, maybe it will be, as some people far more knowledgeable than I on this thread of the ways of Messr. Venge and his compadres believe it will be, but for my tastes, I'd seriously air this out at this point or wait on it in that hope. Anyway, I'm withholding judgment, or at least a point rating, as any score I'd assign would be in a different galaxy from most of the others. I have a '16 B LPV which has at least as good of a CT score as this one. I'll air it and hope for the best. Different strokes and all that, and thanks to Cyclist, even if this wasn't my cup of tea.

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  5/16/2021 - Mark1npt Likes this wine: 95 Points

  A solid wine. Decanted about an hour.......hefty fruit, alcohol and a tinge of acidity on opening. This blew off and calmed down over the hour. Cardinal/garnet red fruit in the glass, earthy notes on the nose along with some herbal qualities I can't quite place. The wine is clean, well put together and definitely true to the varietal but it seems to be lacking something. Layers? Depth of fruit? It seems just a tad simple. Hard to say that while still giving the wine a 95, but I was expecting more given the previous reviews and the passage of time......

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  5/1/2021 - Cyclist Likes this wine: 100 Points

  You've saved the girl but now you're on the roof deck in Dubai having an exquisite meal in mixed company. There is no way out of this alive for you...unless. You pull out a 2016 B Cellars Beckstoffer Dr. Crane Cabernet Franc. The perfect weapon. It oozes into your orifice with such silky, velvety mouthfeel breaking apart into a hundred fireworks of fresh dark fruit and gravel with a hint of herbs to wash the weight away. It lingers. It lingers for the rest of the day, letting you know it saved your life.

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  7/29/2019 - GQG Likes this wine: 98 Points

  Having experienced what I thought was some of the best Cab Franc ever yesterday as the primary varietal in the Bordeaux blend 2013 Tenuta di Biserno Biserno, I turned to a Napa Cab Franc today to check myself. And hey, this 2016 B Cellars Cab Franc is really rocking!
  
  The Biserno has some old world sensibilities blended with the new world whereas this Kirk Venge single-varietal creation is a full-on new world black raspberry masterpiece. It's not limited to just that single fruit note, though, with vanilla, cacao, minerals, and licorice driving the stunningly deep, ripe, and concentrated core through a lengthy if a bit tart and hot finish.
  
  This wine, along with the Biserno, delivers Cab Franc tastes at the highest level. I slightly preferred the Biserno blend with the way its old world restraint played out on the finish. With the B Cellars being much younger, it's quite likely to match the Biserno in the coming years. 98+

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