About Airlie Bank
About

2019 Airlie Bank Franc
Airlie Bank
Harvested from the Napoleone vineyard, on a block planted in 2001. The vines are finding good balance now, with the crop coming down and the canopy less vigorous.
2019 Airlie Bank Franc is brighter and fruitier than the 2018. Less deep and structural, and a return to the heady herbal aromas of the 2017. This wine is built on seven one-tonne 100% whole-bunch ferments, completely sealed and left to do their thing for 14 days. We did a couple of foot stomps towards the end of ferment to extract some colour, but otherwise this was a very good crack at carbonic maceration. The wine is pressed to ferment out in tank, then racked to old hogsheads, where it remained (unsulphured) for eight months. That's longer than usual, in an attempt to build the presence of the wine, and take the edge off any confected characters that come with cab mac.
Racked out in November 2019, no fining, lightly filtered and 40ppm of SO2 the night before bottling (mid-December 2019). - Tim Shand, Punt Road
May, 2020
The Wine Front
91 points
Nicely packaged, made, grown and priced. Excellent wine to drink. Essentially it’s fresh and fruit-driven but it’s flecked with such an assorted of flavours. Interest, it has plenty. Briar bush, dust, hay, red licorice and fragrant herbs. The latter are in fine voice, it has to be said. It almost tastes/smells stalky but the fresh buoyancy of the fruit prevails. Tonic-like finish, as a positive. Makes you want to keep going back for more.
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About Airlie Bank
About