December 8, 2022 - Alicia’s parents 50th Anniversary dinner
September 9, 2022 - Another beautiful wine from Ben Smith’s Cadence Winery. Wine required decanting and tasted beautifully offer the course of the evening. Even though it was 89% Cab Franc it didn’t count across with that grapes normal green pepper flavors. I would say it was more along the li es if a right bank style. Spectacular Ben!
January 29, 2022 - Nicely mature, cedar, capsicum, black cherry, fig. Medium low acidity on the palate, supple texture mellowed from age, polished, starting to feel mildly tertiary, but dark fruit and subtle earthy varietal character are still up front. Integrated oak adds to the texture and palate arc. Showed a bit of heat, but otherwise had a long finish.
Decanted for 90 minutes before drinking. This bottle seems near peak for my taste. Still some tannic grip, could go further for those who want a more tertiary profile.
June 26, 2019 - Balanced, smooth, round, long finish. At peak, yet several years seem possible.
March 23, 2019 - Excellent! The Cab Franc makes it.
September 7, 2018 - Opened and drank over 4 hours. Dark fruit on the nose, the palate was dark berries, dark plums, figs, a touch of licorice and a hint of spice. The finish was moderate to long.
March 3, 2018 - From memory - drank w/out food. Varietally correct & appealing (not always easy to get both of those together for a cab franc). I remember at one point feeling a flash on the nose of freshly cut grass/bramble from when I was a kid. The only weird thing was that there was a lot of white powdery sediment (along w/ more typical dark precipitate) after leaving this go for a couple hours. I'm going to presume that that was tartaric acid. Still good though.
September 19, 2015 - Softened and smoothed out nicely since we last tried it with ripe fruit and medium/full body. Paired wonderfully with pasta with red sauce.
April 3, 2015 - Very good, but not 60 bucks worthy.
January 16, 2015 - Very tight, restrained nose, Try again in 2017.