February 18, 2008

Thomas and Vaughan 2002 Cabernet Franc

(Found - February 2008)

I've had a bad back of late, must be all that snow shoveling I’m doing - makes you wish you'd chosen condo living instead of home ownership; so tonight I needed relief. Looking at my wine racks I saw a long neck bottle calling out to me, it was a 2002, Thomas & Vaughan Cabernet Franc - I thought to myself, "I could use a little TLC from the likes of Dr. Thomas and Dr. Vaughan" - so let's see if they can make this house call memorable. I sunk the corkscrew into the wax top covering the cork and pulled up ... Yikes, plastic cork! That could be trouble. My first smell and taste were plasticy. I dumped my glass and tried again. A nose of spices, leather, cloves, blackberries and allspice - the tannins in the mouth were rich, the flavors were cassis, blueberry skins, a vanilla-cinnamon mixture and fine oak. Pretty impressive ... fifteen minutes later something happened. I had misplaced my glass as I began doing something else and when I came back to it I found juicy, ripe blackberries, a touch of cedar, silky smooth tannins and a touch of cocoa on the finish; the nose had also developed some sweet tobacco. Very impressive … another 25 minutes past. Now I have a real quaffer on my hands - it's smooth, soft, luscious and head-tiltingly good ... seems like I hit the sweet spot on this one, best of all, looks like I have another bottle on the racks. Lost and Found Rating: Treasure.

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