Winemaker's Note: Deeply coloured, pouring and aeration reveals an alluring fragrance of red fruit, red licorice, tobacco, and culinary herbs. The absence of new oak character serves to promote the wines purity, promoting a true expression of Cabernet Franc. The palate displays a core of rich red fruit and minerality which is unique to Gimblett Gravels, with deft acidity and tactile tannins delivering a wine with unique personality and texture. This wine is enjoyable upon release but will continue to gain further complexity with up to 8-10 years of bottle aging.
Vinification: Cabernet Franc was harvested at ideal maturity. The fruit was fully destemmed into open top fermentation vessels. Fermentation was carried out by indigenous yeast from our Deerstalkers Vineyard with daily hand plunging employed to extract colour and tannin from the skins. The grapes spent 25 to 30 days in the vat before the wine was run off and the skins pressed in our basket press. After settling for 24 hours the new wine was gently transferred to old French oak barriques for 18 months maturation. Once blended the wine was gently egg-white fined and filtered before bottling.
