2008 Toucan Wines Carignane

Harvested from the low-yielding 120 year old vines, grown in the Evangelho vineyard in Contra Costa County. This wine was slowly fermented after a period of cold soaking and pressed to a combination of French, Hungarian and American oak barrels for 17 months. The resulting wine is a classic varietal bottling from this outstanding old vine vineyard. This wine is big and beautiful with elegant plump berry on the palate and a beautiful finish. It's great now, but consider laying down a case of this wine, as I expect it to improve with another year or two in the bottle. Read the whole story...

Dark, with strongly perfumed aromatics of Santa Rosa plums, orange zest, fennel, and white pepper. Assertive mouth-filling flavors follow the aroma. Toucan Carignan has many of the characteristics of Petite Sirah, but with livelier acids and greater complexity. No trace of Carignan’s typical bitterness. Tannins are well-controlled. A superb example of New World Carignane. Highly recommended. -- Alan Boehmer, Suite101.com

-- only 217 cases produced --