Tasting Notes
Niagara continues to raise the bar with the Cabernet Franc it produces – this vintage is a great example of just that! This wine is extremely perfumed and elegant, yet rich, bold, and powerful. Immediately showing on the nose are mulberry, blackberry, cassis, and raspberry with sweet tobacco leaf, leather, mocha, pancetta, and cardamom appearing in the background. The palate shows real finesse combined with rich, round, and apparent tannins giving this wine immense structure and age-ability. The balance of red and black fruit with smoked meat, leather, and tobacco are surrounded by flavourful spices. Try with hard cheese like well-aged Cheddar or Pecorino Romano, or with roasted red meats.
Winemaker’s Notes
The 2018 vintage was slightly cool to start but was otherwise warm throughout. The heat continued well into harvest allowing the grapes plenty of time to ripen on the vine, although some heavy rain events made harvest a challenge.
Hand-picked and hand-sorted on October 29th, the grapes were destemmed and left to soak on skins prior to fermentation. Fermentation was started in small, open-top fermentors. The skins were punched down by hand 2x per day throughout the fermentation process. The wine remained on skins for 6 days after fermentation before being gently pressed. After being transferred to French & American oak barrels (40% new) to be aged for 20 months, the 2018 Cabernet Franc was bottled on September 10, 2020.
