When I first tasted O.S. wines a number of years ago, I thought I had maybe found the holy-grail of Seattle-based wineries as it seemed at the time to offer some of the better wine-values going. Here you have a winery whose winemaker, Bill Owen, was schooled by Chris Camarda and has found a way to make his own mark in O.S. wines which continue to garner critical acclaim among critics and daily wine drinkers.

Bill and co-owner, Rob Sullivan, are sticklers on sourcing the top fruit from the state of Washington and in this 2003 effort of Cabernet Franc were able to snatch up some grapes from industry-leading Champoux Vineyard in the Horse Heaven Hills area.

I bought this bottle a few years ago and it’s been laying down since that time – We had about 1/2 the bottle the first day and I tasted it for the next day or two afterwards to see if it changed much at all and here are my thoughts:

Smells like: dark plums mixed with black cherry and dirt – grilled asparagus tips, a touch of baseball mitt and some elderberry.

Tastes like: deep black cherry on the front palate with the baseball mitt opening on the mid-palate and a hint of dr. pepper – the finish gets a bit disjointed and doesn’t linger as long as I’d like.

Summary: For $35, I’d have to pass on this wine as there are others in its price-range I enjoy a lot more.