2014 Kitten Swish Target Practice Cabernet Franc
Okanagan Valley, British Columbia
I met David and Cynthia Enns years ago when Mark started to import their wine into Alberta. Solid people with killer wine – my favorite. I cornered David one night while at a dinner, confidently stating that I had a great idea for Cabernet Franc…I just needed someone to jump on board and help me figure out the details (AKA: I need someone who knows what they’re doing.) One of the things I love about David is his ambition for
experimentation. The Laughing Stock winery is filled with various ferments and vessels with David keen to see what ends up where. His curiosity peeked and a year later we decided to make some wine together. This is the first “vineyard up” project for Kitten Swish. David found a suitable vineyard and together we
designed a fermentation/aging schedule, that should if all worked out, yield something completely badass. You, dear bibber, will be the judge of that. But I will say in this print, this wine kicks ass.
Hands Down Badass.
The vineyard is in the west Osoyoos area of south Okanagan Valley, and is planted with relatively young Cabernet Franc vines. The soil is soft sand. The wine was fermented in stainless using 70% whole cluster with roughly 20% whole berry, remainder being juice. The wine was aged in one puncheon first used in 2009. The thought of using whole cluster in Okanagan Valley Cabernet Franc seemed a little ridiculous…who would want stem tannin and aroma in an already stemmy and tannic wine? Well, me. I thought if we were gentle with the extraction and avoided tannins and aroma from oak we’d find something pretty in the
middle…between fruit and technique. Thankfully 2014 was a hot, long vintage for the Okanagan and we achieved full lignification of the stems with perfect fruit. Pretty indeed, so very pretty. I’d like to think the Okanagan Valley has never seen a wine quite like this. It emphasizes the warmth of the valley, it retains the natural freshness of the valley, while remaining true to the variety…and it has the swishy hand prints of David and myself.
The label…
David and I were touring his new plot of land up the Naramata Bench where he and Cynthia have planted Pinot Noir, and will soon be planting a house. I spotted this gnarly decaled cube tossed among the bushes. Finding out it was the archery target of David’s son Joshua gave me some inspiration. A target practice. That was exactly what David and I were doing in the winery, shooting for the middle, hoping for the best shot at killer Cabernet Franc. I went out sometime later and shot the cube (with a camera) and worked the photo into a swishy label mess.
Aiming for the perfect middle.
You love the middle.
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