Yayoi Wines 2024 Macedon Ranges Cabernet Franc 'Mon Grand Frere'

Made with fruit from the famed Glenhope Vineyard (Baynton) the 2024 'Mon Grand Frere' from Yayoi Wines is dark and brooding in the glass. Serious and slightly reticent, aeration brings notes of red and blue fruits, graphite and pencil shavings, cigar wrapper, and campfire ash. The palate is medium-bodied and taut with incisive acidity and youthfully firm tannin. Red and black cherry, some crushed blackberry, pencil lead and mineral ores, and a sneakily long finish with saline touches. The denouement brings out a charming rusticity through nuances of tobacco, a melange of sweet Virginian and smoky Latakia, along with some difficult to describe complexity akin to mossy granite. This will give the claret boys a run for their money. - David