Cuvée Ronsard, Domaine de la Petite Mairie, Bourgueil 2012, Loire Valley, France

Tasting Note: An inoffensive cabernet franc that shows the basic grape without maximizing on any one aroma or flavor dimension while capturing the region’s characteristic earth-forward style.

Deep ruby to purple in color this Chinon cabernet franc has dark red and black fruit aromas including blackberry, red currant, red plum and also some cedar, green pepper notes.

On the attack, soft, medium tannin masks the fruit character of the medium-bodied wine which also delivers earthy, farmyard, forest-floor flavors.

Bottle Note: Each wine bearing the “Rosenthal Wine Merchant” mark has been produced in limited quantities by a dedicated artisan. The growers with whom I work follow traditional methods and produce wines in as natural a manner as possible. In the overwhelming majority of cases, the wines I select are unfined and unfiltered. Therefore you may find that a sediment forms in the bottle. This is a natural occurrence. All my wines are shipped from the estate at which they were bottled to the point of distribution in the United States with every care taken to protect them from the vagaries of temperature fluctuation. – Neal Rosenthal