Julie et Toby Bainbridge Cuvee Highway 8 2021

This is a fresh and lively red from Julie & Toby Bainbridge who work four hectares of vines in Anjou, located in France's picturesque Loire Valley.

Tasting Notes: Plummy fruit, lightly piquant spice, and some earth demonstrate how rare this carbonically macerated Cab Franc is balanced, complex glou-glou. It is light and green but not rooty or stalkish. It is juicy without being a juicy bomb. It carries spice without offending the front of the palate. A gem from the Anjou (although the cuvee's name is an homage to a specific stretch of road stateside).

Vinification: 100% Cabernet Franc, from 85 year-old vines atop black schist soil. Hand-harvested, fermented with native yeasts in two fiberglass vats using the method of carbonic maceration. Slight CO2 is left in the bottle to protect/preserve the wine, so do not be surprised if there is slight effervescence. Unfined, unfiltered, no SO2 at bottling.