Broadside Blackletter 2022

Broadside is a California producer working in Paso Robles, a warm inland region on the Central Coast. The hot days and notably cool nights, with one of the widest diurnal swings in California, ripen Cabernet Sauvignon fully while the night-time drop in temperature locks in acidity and freshness. The calcareous and clay-loam soils add structure and a mineral backbone, and the warm climate explains the ripe, full-bodied style and the fifteen per cent alcohol. After fermentation the wine spends twenty-four months in French oak barrels, where the long, slow exchange of oxygen softens and integrates the firm Cabernet tannins and adds notes of cocoa, cedar, vanilla and spice. The colour is a deep, dense purple. The nose shows ripe blackcurrant, dark plum and black cherry over dark chocolate and black pepper. The palate is full bodied with ripe, grippy tannins, concentrated dark fruit and a long, warming finish carried by the oak. This is a generous, structured Cabernet that drinks well now and will hold. Serve at 17 to 18 degrees, decanted for an hour, with red meat.