Didier Barral, the vigneron, did an excellent job of balancing ripeness and spicy red fruit flavors with acidity in this cuvée of 50percentt carignan, 30percentt grenache and 20percentt cinsault.
An example of a flawed wine is Cabernet Sauvignon from underripe grapes: bell peppery and devoid of other balancing ripeness giving it a sharp, all-green edge.
This gives the grapes the long hang time (beginning of November) necessary for achieving balance of ripeness and acidity".
Balanced between not yet and too late, ripeness is also the sort of narrative effect that prose fiction can really deliver.
"The Tempest," Shakespeare's last play, is among other things a tale of leave-taking and last things, and the youthful aggression of "The Social Network" is balanced by quite a few films that explore age, ripeness and mortality.
Primates, I learned, love sweets for reasons that are simple enough to explain: sweetness is the natural sign of ripeness, and the best assurance, especially when balanced with just enough acids, that the thing you're eating is good to eat.
Taste and check it is nicely balanced: add more vinegar, lime or a little agave syrup or honey if it needs sweetness (depending on the sweetness and ripeness of your tomatoes).
"We weren't getting balanced phenolic maturity to develop the flavors, so we had to hang our fruit out there much longer to get that ripeness," said Nicholas Palumbo, owner of Temecula's Palumbo Family Vineyards & Winery.
Where other Cabernet producers went for greater ripeness, and higher alcohols starting in the mid-1980s, seeking to appeal to Robert Parker's palate once he became the leading critic, Silver Oak maintained the balanced, relatively low alcohol levels of the wines that first gained them attention and a loyal consumer following.
The wines strike that delicate balance between freshness, ripeness and structure that wines grown in the Santa Cruz Mountains are known for.
