Tasting Note: The 2022 predecessor took a Platinum medal at the National Wine Awards. This vintage follows on well with core authenticity and more energy from this higher-strung vintage. Loire cab franc purists will love this. Colour is luminous, fairly deep ruby. The nose sports lifted slightly youthful grapy and berry fruit somewhere between raspberry and blackberry, plus violets, fresh herbs, shrubby evergreen and background oak. It is medium weight and energized with gritty, slightly green and grainy tannin. The length is excellent. I would rest it about two years. It should drink well for a decade.

Backgrounder:  BBH was named Best Small Winery in Canada at the 2026 Nationals, just four years since its first vintage.  Taylor Emerson purchased this property in Lincoln Lakeshore just below the Beamsville Bench in 2017, and began planting the usual Niagara varieties – cabernet franc, chardonnay, riesling – and tossed in Rhone varieties white and red that have done well.  The wines are made by cousin Jonathan McLean who had been making wine in the Okanagan Valley. This wine speaks to the 2023 vintage with its coolish, at times smoke hazed summer then a terrific autumn that ripened cab franc very well. This was hand-harvested on October 23 at 23.2 brix.  The grapes were destemmed and lightly crushed prior to a wild/ambient fermentation in tank. It was aged 20-months in 19% new French oak barrels, then estate bottled unfiltered and unfined.

 Accolades: Gold Medal National Wine Awards 2026