Tasting Note – This is the first cab franc vintage to be designated as CSV – single vineyard Cave Spring Vineyard – the top tier in Cave Spring’s range (joining CSV Riesling and CSV Chardonnay)  It easily captures the lifted, elegant, polished, lighter style that the Beamsville Bench infuses. Expect nicely integrated, complex aromas of raspberry, red rose, lightly meaty and herbal notes with fine oak vanillin and spice. It is medium bodied, quite delicate and poised with juicy acidity and fine, chalky tannin. The length is excellent. Very nicely made and should appeal widely.  Enjoy over the next five years.

Backgrounder
Cave Spring is well known as one of the founding wineries of the Beamsville Bench. This is from 19-year old vines in the original Cave Spring Vineyard (CSV), based on clay-limestone soils that I believe are giving this wine its finesse.  But so is the coddled winemaking, which included 75% de-stemmed fruit with 30% stem return; 25% foot-pressed, whole-cluster fruit; a four-week maceration and fermentation using indigenous yeast. It was gravity feed to press and barrel then aged for 22 months, 70% in 225L neutral oak, 20% in 2nd–4th fill 225L French oak, and 10% in 500L neutral oak. There was minimal sulphur additions and it was bottled unfiltered