A franc-ly delicious wine from winemaker Andrew Jones, shown above, in Paso Robles.
From $17.99, £28
Driving away from a recent tasting with Andrew Jones and Curt Schalchlin in Paso Robles, I buzzed with excitement. Jones is the winemaker for Field Recordings; Schalchlin is the winemaker for Sans Liege (whose 2022 Journeyman white was a Wine of the Week candidate but is not yet available in the UK) and together they have a project called The Fableist. The wines that I tasted from all three brands were lighter and brighter than the classic plushness expected from Paso Robles – though, as I’ve discussed here, they are far from the only ones pushing towards lighter wines. The Field Recordings wines in particular seemed to giggle and blow raspberries in the face of the ‘Paso Robles makes heavy wines’ stereotype – rollicking, fresh and lower alcohol than many, these wines are made – and priced – to drink now.
Though the wines are adorned with labels that lean into the natural-wine vibe (the Freddo red even has a colour-changing label to indicate when it has been chilled properly), I promise you that you do not have to be on a raw-food diet or listen to indie rock to enjoy them.
Jones started Field Recordings in 2007 as a hobby to keep busy during the quiet months of his day job. That job, which he has held for 22 years, is as the vice president of sales for wine grape material for Sunridge Nurseries, the largest wholesale grapevine nursery in the US. Planning and planting vineyards down the West Coast led to a curiosity for winemaking and eventually he began taking a few tons from vineyards that he had a special interest in. Now he brings in 800 tons of fruit and has a 40,000-case production – with half of that being his Skins orange wine. While he still purchases the vast majority of his fruit – sourcing from 28 vineyards – he also owns and farms 21 acres (8 ha) and, having acquired the late Jim Clendenen’s Le Bon Climat in 2022, he plans to bring another 52 acres (21 ha) into full production in 2025. (That vineyard was left untended for a year after Clendenen’s death, and mealybug and virus damage necessitated replanting. It is now planted to 16 varieties, with some of Clendenen’s original planting material preserved.)
While I enjoyed all the Field Recordings wines, the 2021 Franc is the one that most stood out to me. It’s made from Cabernet Franc sourced from Hinterland, Dry Creek and Dos Robles vineyards in the north, east and central portions of the Paso Robles AVA. Jones calls his picks on the early side, preferring to retain acidity over building sugar and potential alcohol. Once the grapes arrive at the winery, half are destemmed and they are layered into open-top bins. Fermentation kicks off with ambient yeasts and grapes are given only a single punchdown each day to avoid over-extraction. The wine is then aged for seven months in mostly neutral 1,200- and 1,500-gallon American oak tanks with some neutral French oak. As Jones aims for low sulphite additions (keeping total SO2 under 80 ppm), he finds it best to give the wine a light filtering prior to bottling.
The resulting wine is bright and fresh with sprightly acidity and popping ripe red and tart black-fruit character. This is complemented by spicy pyrazine aromas of blackcurrant leaf and crisp green bell pepper, with crème de cassis and an undertone of crushed gravel. At 12.5% alcohol the wine is incredibly easy to drink and is versatile with any number of foods – including any that might land on your Thanksgiving table (though perhaps not the sweet pies).
While I’ve seen the 2020 Franc kicking around, I’m quite fond of the 2021 vintage as it generally offers more freshness and verve than the warmer 2020. The 2021 Franc is widely available in the US and can be found at Martha’s Vineyard in Michigan for $25.99, Central Coast Wines in San Luis Obisbo for $28 and wine.com for $22.99, with the best price of all currently $17.99 from Vin Chicago. In the UK the wine is carried by Nekter, who sell it online for £28 as well as selling to various stockists.
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