Leese - Fitch

2010 California Cabernet Sauvignon

GOLD MEDAL

US National Wine Competition, 2012
Shelf Talkers
Sell Sheet

Notes

Deep purple in color, the 2010 Leese Fitch Cabernet Sauvignon blend jumps from the glass with aromas of juicy blackberries, ripe blueberries, dark chocolate, and toasted walnuts. A lot of great Cab flavor in the mouth; black currants, ripe blackberries, dark cherry, milk chocolate, espresso, clove, and vanilla oak nuances. The finish is truly lingering with a lot of dark blue fruit notes as well as some great tannic structure and integrated French and American oak flavors.

Our 2010 Leese Fitch Cabernet Sauvignon was a much larger blend than in years past. We truly strived to keep up the high quality of this blend while increasing the availability. I think that our efforts have definitely paid off. We added a good slug of Cabernet from the Northern Interior Valley (a hilly region of the Central Valley just east of Livermore), Lodi, Paso Robles and Clarksburg. These four growing districts gave us very ripe fruit at the end of the 2010 growing season. You can see the ripe blackberry notes from each district. Then you can also see the touches of terrior from each region as well. The Alicante Bouchet, Carignane, and Petite Sirah from Lodi adds a ton of color, old vine character, and texture. The Merlot and Syrah from Paso Robles add fruit and softness to round out the tannins. And finally the Cab Franc from Lake County adds some delicate loamy aromatics and depth in this blend. The sum of the parts is a wonderful glass of Cabernet Sauvignon. Enjoy!

Pairings

This 2010 Cab begs for a great steakhouse steak with all the trimmings. I would pair this with a classic New York strip steak with a baked potato with sour cream and chives with a side of creamed spinach. Another good pairing would be steak fajitas with guacamole, spaghetti with a rich ragu alla bolognese, or just a really good burger. I don’t think you can go wrong here.