Smith & Sheth Cru Cabernet Franc Heretauranga Hawke's Bay 2021

Smith & Sheth Cabernet Franc is made from the Howell Vineyard in Bridge Pa, Hawke’s Bay, and tastes of soft, smooth vanilla, impressive rich dark blueberries and blackberries. It’s one of those wines with great concentration and fantastic length, a full body that suggests fabulous potential to age, but who knows? How often do we get to taste aged Cabernet Franc, after all? Here’s a good reason to stash some under the bed for 10 years to find out. 

This wine is made from hand picked grapes grown in the Bridge Pa region of Hawke's Bay on silty clay soils that lie over free draining red gravel. The wine was aged in French oak for 12 months, 50% of which was new oak. It has great structure as a result and represents an outstanding expression of one of New Zealand's lesser known grape varieties, Cabernet Franc, which makes up just 93 hectares of the country's total vineyard area today - a drop of nearly 50% from 2000 when there were 161 hectares. A sad decline, despite the growing quality of wines made from this outstanding grape variety.