Winemaker Notes
This nouveau-style Cabernet Franc jumps from the glass all fragrance and fruit. Milk chocolate, Turkish delight and a subtle hint of herbs join with deeply intense cherry fruit. The palate is soft, supple and intensely flavorsome. A core of rolling blackberry brambles slides across your palate, bookended with fine chalky tannin. Delicate whole bunch notes add complexity and depth to the profile. This is a fragrant, delicious expression of Cabernet Franc made for immediate enjoyment.
Professional Ratings
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Australian Wine Companion
Juicy, bouncy, stemmy, crunchy cabernet franc: delicious. Blackberries, eucalyptus, pink peppercorns, red licorice, brine, bitter dark chocolate and even red snakes. This puts me firmly in mind of a nouveau wine from Chinon – drink it tonight to experience the joy and x-factor this wine has to offer. For those who insist on drinking cabernet throughout summer, this could be the answer. I think it would handle a gentle chill with grace.
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James Suckling
Such purity of fresh red-berry fruit, as well as big, fragrant perfume and a leafy edge, too. So fresh. The palate has a smooth red-fruit core and offers a bright, lithe and juicy style.
Penley Estate is located in the center of Australia's most famous Cabernet region: Coonawarra. Continuing a family tradition that spans five generations, the winery was established in 1988 when the Tolley children continued the winemaking heritage of their pioneering families, Penfold and Tolley, both storied names in the Australian wine industry. In 1844, Mary Penfold defied stereotypes and was the driving force behind the establishment of McGill Estate. Similarly, from 1948-1961, Gladys Penfold Hyland was Penfold's Chairman of the Board. Their descendants, sisters Bec and Ang Tolley, run Penley Estate, proudly channeling the vim and might of their ancestors. Penley Estate's 240 acres of vineyards were planted atop Coonawarra's "terra rossa" soils with the aim of producing terroir-driven wines with distinctive regional character, and is now regarded as one of the region's leading Cabernet and Shiraz producers.
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.
Distinguished by a thin, subterranean band of crumbled, red clay loam, Coonawarra is a fairly flat, otherwise unobtrusive region with a cool Mediterranean climate, actually not dissimilar to Bordeaux.
In Coonawarra, this unique layer of red clay is called, "terra rossa" and gets its color from iron oxide. The terra rossa soil overlies soft, penetrable limestone, in a continuous area that is part of the Limestone Coast zone of South Australia. This uncommon layering of soils creates a substrate that is both well draining and at the same time, offers good water retention to support vine roots through dry summers.
Not surprisingly, Coonawara experiences great success with the Bordeaux varieties, namely Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, but also Shiraz. However Cabernet reigns superior and accounts for half of the Coonawarra harvest each year. Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon develops powerful, yet polished tannins, ripe, red berry fruit and often sweet herb or dried mint qualities. The region has an increased focus on the individual expressions of single vineyards.