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#385 Cape Collective Stempel Cabernet Franc 2022

Just watch the tasting notes

TASTING NOTES

👃🏼 The aromas carry everything that makes Cabernet Franc one of my favourite cultivars. It’s a trifector of spicy herbaceous elements alongside vivid cherry fruit and subtle oak spice.
If you need more specific notes, I detect ripe black cherry, tobacco leaf, violets, and some RED rose petal (a note which is always deeper, and darker; quite distinct from “rosewater” which some folk use synonously a general “rose” descriptor.

👄  Such a lovely mix of red and black fruit. Cassis / blackcurrant undercurrents support more overt redder elements of cherry and red plum. Then, sending the aforementioned elements beyond thunderdome is a glorious weave of savoury tobacco leaf and roasted red bell pepper.

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VIDEO CHAPTER INDEX:

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00:00 – Intro
01:12 – xx
02:21 – xx
05:30 – xx
07:20 – xx
08:04 – xx
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WINE BUYING HACK: Cab Franc + Alcohol

Cabernet Franc is a fickle beast, that can present itself in a dauntingly wide array of styles. One bottle may be brimming with lumpy, flabby, sickly sweet, blueberry-and-black-plum vibes, while the adjacent bottle harbours herbally-green-enamel-stripping-raspberry-laced cabbage water. There be dragons here!
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HOW DO YOU KNOW WHICH IS WHICH?

There are plenty of systems that can help you navigate these perilous Franc-ish waters (Vivino being one of them) but if you want to make split second decisions, without giving off noob vibes, all one needs to do it take a gander at the alcohol statement on the label.
As a general rule, the higher the alcohol levels, the riper (and blue-er) the fruit will be.
So a wine with an ABV (alcohol by volume) of 14.5% or higher is highly likely to be big and ripe, with notes of blueberries, sugar plum, and (if you’re lucky) some black cherry. There will most likely be absolutely no bell pepper notes.
Should you happen upon a Franc with and ABV of 13.0% to 13.0% (the most interesting category IMHO), there is a higher likelihood of a wine that features a mixture of pleasant vegetal notes, some herbs, and a lovely comboo of red berries AND black fruit.
Once you start exploring bottle with an ABV of 12.5% or lower, the risk of encountering acerbic sanguine cabbage water rise exponentially.
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OBVIOUSLY there will be exceptions…

This is not a hard rule, and some of the most skilled vignerons can (almost effortlessly) produce radiant red-fruited Cab Francs with not hint of cabbage. The Lokaia Call of the Void Cabernet Franc is a beautiful example. But for the most part this ABV rule will help you mitigate risk when exploring producers you’re not familiar with.
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If you have yet to sign up for your Monthly HanDrinksSolo Wine Subscription then you’ll have to hunt this wine down in your own time. But until then, here are my tasting notes & technical specs:
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TECHNICAL SPECS

🔬 Wine of origin Stellenbosch. 100% Cabernet Franc.

Dane Raath and Janneman Solms
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