Unfortunately we can’t recommend everything…
Posted by lawgeek on 09 Jan 2009 at 09:55 pm | Tagged as: Food and Wine, The nine-oh-five
I bought a bottle of the Hillebrand Winery Trius 2004 Cabernet Franc (VQA Niagara) this evening, partly on the strength of having enjoyed the 2002 version and partly because it was, er, conveniently available where I was buying the wherewithal for dinner.
J. nicely deconstructed (or perhaps reverse-engineered) the label as broadcasting a sort of sort of middle of the road, yuppie-ish, respectable-but-not-too-complicated vibe. Which is essentially what this wine is all about. It has a degree of interest — an attractive Niagara-red smokiness with a bit of greenness which isn’t necessarily a bad thing — but ultimately too much greenness (more raspberry-leaf than raspberry…) and a serious deficit on the palate.
I don’t regret giving this one a spin but at $14.95 and 13% there are better values out there.
I find Cabernet Franc in general has an excess of greenness. If you find one that doesn’t sure to post.
I think it may be more of a ripeness issue than anything else — 2004 was an OK year but not a great year for reds in Ontario so I suppose the $15 range of CS/CF/Merlot is not going to have the ripest fruit. (And there is probably a lot of marginal CF grown in Ontario…)
The 2005 NCT Cab Franc we blogged about a while ago was in a much warmer, riper style. I’m looking forward to uncorking the 2005 Coyotes Run Cab Franc which I liked a great deal in the tasting room. Their 2006 CF wasn’t as good though it wasn’t actually green per se.
The 2003 Lailey’s Reserve CF was unexpectedly impressive.