Robert Mondavi Oakville Cabernet Franc shows off its mouth-watering acidity here with juicy dark fruits highlighted by a hint of violet floral and toasty, savory complexity. Not as tightly structured as cabernet sauvignon, yet with firm, silky tannins, this is an ideal food pairing wine.

Generous winter rains helped alleviate the drought conditions of the past four years, and the 2016 growing season started early. Throughout the summer months, we enjoyed cooler than average daytime highs and cool evenings, providing balancing acidity to our sun-ripened grapes. The near-perfect growing season continued through harvest and our grapes were safely in the cellar as the valley’s first significant rainstorm arrived late October. We are grateful for a fifth consecutive vintage of stellar quality Napa Valley wines.

The grapes were hand-harvested into small bins and carefully sorted in our gravity-flow cellar. The clusters were gently destemmed directly into traditional French oak tanks for cold soak, fermentation and extended maceration – a total of 32 days of wine to skin contact – maximizing the extraction of varietal character and complexity while keeping the tannins fleshy and supple. The new wine was drained and gently pressed into French-oak barrels (100% new) for malolactic fermentation, assuring seamless integration of fruit and oak. The final blend was assembled through repeated tasting trials over the 20 months of barrel aging.