Cabernet Franc Suicide Hill 2014

Description

For reference only, Robert Parker’s The Wine Advocate (8/27/15): “Another terrific wine, the 2010 Cabernet Franc Suicide Hill has lots of ripeness in its concentrated black cherry, red plum, dried flower, and Asian spice-driven bouquet. Medium to full-bodied, beautifully textured and layered, with polished, sweet tannin, it’s certainly approachable now, yet will be better with another 2-3 years of bottle age and keep for a decade after that. Anticipated maturity through 2028.”

Now. If you know Cabernet Franc, you may realize our 2010 and 2011 are the only two versions of the variety we see reviewed in The Wine Advocate Issue 220 (both wines are sold out!). If you know The Wine Advocate, you know that scores such as this for Cab Franc grown in Santa Barbara County are an historic achievement. We believe this is more like a 95 point wine. Cab Franc is the primary component of the wines from the legendary Pomerol estate Lafleur and our inspiration for planting and nurturing these vines. In The Wine Advocate review the key phrase is “beautifully textured”. Cabernet Franc is used in virtually every great Bordeaux wine but is rarely featured.

The reason for that is it brings much to the master blend but rarely has the “beautiful texture” of Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot. In this case, the texture is subordinate to nothing as this is a 100 percent stand alone beauty. Due to the drought, the hillside vines that surrendered this fantastic wine are too stressed out to have produced a Reserve such as this subsequent to 2011 and until further notice, Reserve Cabernet Franc will be very, very scarce. Because of that shortage, we have to make this a net priced wine. Estate Grown fruit from Suicide Hill in the southwest corner of the back hills of Blackjack Ranch Vineyard. Exquisite and unique.