I’ll admit that I spend my wine days and nights in New York chasing the obscure. Bring me all your wonderfully weird wines! Sometimes, though, this is at the expense of the classics. Case in point would be the Freemark Abbey Cabernet Bosché.
I had the pleasure of tasting this wine with Ted Edwards, director of winemaking. He’s been responsible for the wines at Freemark Abbey for over three decades. Now that’s a hell of a tenure.
After a very nice 2016 Chardonnay (extremely satisfying for $30) we dove into two library wines.
The 2003 was in an outstanding place. I have to confess to not liking super-old wines. OK, if you want to open a top Bordeaux from 1945, 1961, 1982, etc. for me I would be absolutely delighted. But in general I do not like wines that have lost all their fruit, particularly white wines.
So at 15 years, this wine was perfect. Plenty of primary fruit flavors with a blend of those secondary, more savory characteristics that only come with bottle age. The decade-old 2008 was remarkably youthful.
I tried the “regular” Napa Cab, which at $50 is a very good deal for a wine from the region. It also, if I may say something that sounds facile, tastes like Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon should. Not a syrupy booze bomb with an oak popsicle stick.
Finally, I had a sneak preview of the 2015 Freemark Abbey Cabernet Bosché. I believe time will tell it belongs in good company with the 03 and 08.
Oh, and one thing about the name of the wine, specifically the “Cabernet Bosché.” It’s not the name of the grape but rather Cabernet from the Bosché vineyard.
Pricing on the Cabernet Bosché trio: 2003 $200, 20008 $185, 2o15 $150. Regarding the library wines, Freemark Abbey has a super-deep collection of back vintages available to taste and sell. That’s some real foresight, particularly considering the winery has vintages going back to the late 1960s (!).
So how do you like your Cabernet?
