2022 Cabernet Franc / 93 Points / Wine Enthusiast

Medium purple color. Deep but tart aromas of blueberry and black cherries, with complex, deep and spicy tones: tar, mocha, sage, sweet red pepper, black pepper and balsamic glaze. The palate is full but smooth and, like the others, this wine’s acidity is really nice. Tangy plums and juicy black currant fruit blends well with leather, paprika, black pepper, spicy tobacco, mint. A lot going on, and I’d like to see this in five or six years. Cab Sauv with 2% Petit Verdot, aged in 100% French oak.

This annual post looks back at all the wines I wrote about in the previous year and singles out 50 that I thought were great wines. “Great” doesn’t necessarily imply the most profound, though several of these are as profound as wine gets; nor does it necessarily mean that these are the world’s famed wines intended for laying down in cellars for long aging. I don’t usually encounter such wines anyway.

This immense wine is wrapped tightly in tannins, holding the black currant and black cherry flavors firmly in check while a drying sensation puckers the palate. It has good focus and concentration underneath all that, which bodes well for aging.

The wine showed a dark ruby almost opaque color. Blackberry, raspberry preserves, cassis, licorice, vanilla, oak and whiffs of eucalyptus all arrived on the nose. Black cherry, raspberry, vanilla, cassis, licorice, oak and eucalyptus followed on a palate teeming with black cherry. The wine was full-bodied and exhibited good length along with moderate tannins. This wine would be an ideal pair for a seared dry-aged New York strip steak.

Garnet red. Ripe dark red berry and plum with vanilla and cedar show on the nose. Richer and fuller than the 2008 vintage, it’s softer on the attack with more notable ripeness than the 2010. Attractive cedary spice is married to spicy huckleberry, plum and cassis on the palate. There are fine firm tannins on the finish.