Colour: Deep ruby, still showing a purple tinge of youth.
Bouquet: Captivatingly fruity with a cherry jam and dried peaches nose. A good whiff of toasty oak together with fresh, leafy aromas.
Taste: A very similar palate: fruity and well proportioned with good acidity in the balance. Strawberry and chocolate flavours on the lingering finish. A wine of fine intensity!
Cabernet franc as a varietal wine is appealing even to people who prefer white wine. As such, it is a sensible compromise for a wine to drink with a weekday lunch. It can be described as winter’s replacement for summer’s chilled white wines!Serve at 16 - 18 ° Celsius. with the more delicate red meats like grilled lamb chops and fillet of beef or pork with creamy sauces.
in the vineyard : At Neethlingshof the variety has always enjoyed the recognition from the winemaker who is very impressed by the quality of the wine it produces. Neethlingshof’s terroir is, in fact, perfect for producing cabernet franc – with excellent results, vintage after vintage, since 1992. The grapes, planted in 1987, are grown in Tukulu soil on a south-western slope at 125 metres above sea level. They are grafted onto R99, 110 and 101-4 rootstocks and are trellised, using a five-wire vertical fence.
Classic cabernet franc, the first to be bottled under the super-premium LORD NEETHLING label. One of the classic varieties in Bordeaux and the grape that is primarily responsible for the great red wine of Château Cheval Blanc, cabernet franc as a varietal wine has been almost unknown in the Cape. Traditionally an understudy to its more revered first cousin, cabernet sauvignon – with which it is often blended – cabernet franc now appears more and more on the Cape wine stage as a solo performer.
about the harvest: 1999 was again an excellent year for cabernet franc at Neethlingshof. The yield was a low 5 tonnes per hectare. Exceptionally healthy grapes were picked by both hand and machine, on the 3rd of March 99, after reaching a Balling of 24 25 degrees.
in the cellar : Fermentation in rotation tanks at a temperature of 25 – 28 degrees Celsius, using WE 372 yeast strain, was completed in seven days. After undergoing malolactic fermentation, the wine was racked into new French-oak barriques. Maturation in these barrels lasted for a period of 23 months after which the wine was fined and bottled on the 7th of August 2001.