Pearson Cabernet Franc 2002
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This medium bodied Cabernet Franc is deep red with aromas of raspberries and cedar. It is slightly herbaceous, with blackberry flavors and fine tannins. Enjoy with spaghetti bolognese or chili con carne. This wine is ready to drink now, but could age for another 5-8 years.
Jim Pearson started his winery in 1993 with the goal of making very small batches of very good wines. His goal hasn't changed since then. Typically, Pearson Vineyards produces only 1,000 to 1,400 cases of wine per year. Jim begins with grapes that he grows himself — 100 percent come from his five-acre vineyard. The vines are dry grown, hand pruned and hand picked. After harvest, Jim uses a simple, old-fashioned, screw-driven basket press. This produces a lower extraction level than with power-driven presses. As a result, Pearson wines tend to have rich, velvety, intense flavors without sour or bitter tannic notes.
Cabernet Franc, a proud parent of Cabernet Sauvignon, is the subtler and more delicate of the Cabernets. Today Cabernet Franc produces outstanding single varietal wines across the wine-producing world. Somm Secret—One of California's best-kept secrets is the Happy Canyon appellation of Santa Barbara. Here Cabernet Franc shines as a single varietal wine or in blends, expressing sumptuous fruit, savory aromas and polished tannins.
The Clare Valley is actually a series of narrow north to south valleys, each with a different soil type and slightly different weather patterns along their stretch. In the southern heartland between Watervale and Auburn, there is mainly a crumbled, red clay loam soil called terra rossa and cool breezes come in from Gulf St. Vincent. A few miles north, in Polish Hill, is soft, red loam over clay; westerlies blowing in from the Spencer Gulf influece this area's climate.
The differences in soil, elevation, degree of slope and weather enable the region to produce some of Australia’s finest, aromatic, spicy and lime-pithy Rieslings, as well as excellent Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon and Malbec with ripe plummy fruit, good acid and big structure.
Clare Valley is an isolated farming country with a continental climate known for its warm and sunny days, followed by cool nights—perfect for wine grapes’ development of sugar and phenolic ripeness in conjunction with notable acidity levels.