The Story of Two 2002 Cabernet Francs

Thomas & Vaughan 2002 Cabernet Franc:  Not previously reviewed

Peninsula Ridge 2002 Cabernet Franc:  read the original review from May 2005

or the first re-taste: August 2008

This is the story of two bottles of wine ... both from the Bench area of Niagara, both made from the same grape and both made in the same year ... but with serious differences in smell and taste, for one simple reason - let's take a look:

(Tasted March 2014) - I located this bottle in my wine cellar and immediately became excited, Thomas & Vaughan made some very interesting and exciting wines in their time and even had some older vines, especially of Cabernet Franc, and so this seemed a great bottle to open and reminisce about a long lost piece of Ontario wine history.  I knew I was into for a rude awakening the moment I removed the capsule and saw the plastic cork.  Crap!  But I was determined to give it a fair shake.  No too long ago I opened a 6-year-old bottle sealed with a plastic corked that was actually drinkable (not drinkable for long, but drinkable), the problem is this one was double that.  It didn't take long for me to realize I was not going to be as lucky.  The Thomas & Vaughan had such great promise but was oxidized (slightly at first, but still evident) as time wore on (no more than 30 minutes) it was fully oxidized and undrinkable.  Lost & Found Rating:  Trash

(Re-Tasted March 2014) - While I waited on the T&V wine to see what would happen to it I thought I'd pull out a "back-up" and found this bottle of Peninsula Ridge 2002 Cabernet Franc, sealed with a natural cork.  I broke the cork halfway through the opening so I struggled a little to get the remaining piece out and managed to remove it with a minimal amount of cork bits getting into the wine.  This was a marked improvement from the T&V wine right out of the bottle:  smoky with dried blackberry and cassis, sweet dried raspberry, tobacco leaf, and a long smoky finish with a certain smoothness as the tannins have mellowed.  It continued to evolve through the evening, and as the Thomas & Vaughan was dying a slow cruel death this one was rising like a pheonix to take over the void on my palate the T&V was leaving behind.

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Thomas & Vaughan 2001 Cabernet Sauvignon

Found March 2009

Doomed from the start ... that is the best way to describe this wine. Now don't get me wrong, this wine had such great potential, if not for the ladybugs that spoiled the party. Tonight, I decided to open a bottle of Thomas and Vaughan and see how the wine from this now-troubled winery have aged. At first I was not sure of the smell I was getting, then it became clear: pyrazine. That peanut smell that hit Ontario in 2001 from so many scared ladybugs with no where to go - some got it big time while others were spared. This one was only slightly buggy, but it made a difference both on the nose and on the palate. Let's push through it for a moment and see what else this wine could have been. There were signs of green pepper on the nose; the palate shed the bug and delved into the realm of cedar, cinnamon and blackberries. There was even hints of tannin still there. But in the end the bug took over with a bitter finish and as it opened it gained more of "those smells" - too bad, this wine was definitely going places. Lost & Found: Trash - but barely.

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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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while there sign up for Michael's free bi-weekly newsletter.