Finding out about Cabernet Franc at Oldenburg

Oldenburg Vineyards’ Cabernet Franc makes me want to write poetry to describe it and the beautiful valley where it grows,

and how a brief shaft of sunshine shone like a spotlight on the Cab Franc vineyard the day we visited the farm for a vertical tasting of all the vintages produced so far. But I won’t. I’ll quote Hammond Innes from his book High Stand instead: ‘All to the east was shrouded in fog, a dense bank of it that presented a dark, lowering wall’, and then point to the picture above for the sunshine moment.*

What makes Oldenburg’s Cab Franc so special? ‘Luck plus science,’ said regional sales manager Raymond NoppĂ© (CWM). The science includes the choice of a modern clone that focuses more on fruit and less on herbaceous aromatics; and planting the vines in the iron-rich loamy koffieklip soils on the lower slopes of Rondekop, that sunlit bulge in the photo, which bring a delicious minerality to the wine.


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