Brash Higgins

'FRNC' Cabernet Franc 2023

Made by Brad Hickey, a New York-born former sommelier who founded Brash Higgins in McLaren Vale, South Australia. This 100% Cabernet Franc is sourced from the Sands Vineyard in McLaren Flat, where vines planted in 1988 grow on cracking black clay atop an ancient sand dune. Handpicked and wild fermented in open one-tonne fermenters, the fruit spent five weeks on skins before fifteen months' maturation in seasoned French oak hogsheads. The result is a translucent violet-hued wine with a lifted, aromatic nose of jalapeño, alpine herbs, violets, roasted capsicum and rose petal, layered over mulberry and red plum. The palate is medium-bodied and silky, with fine-grained, papery tannins and vibrant natural acidity delivering energy and precision through a long, smooth finish. Elegant and unmistakably varietal, it reflects Hickey's minimal-intervention approach and focus on purity, perfume and freshness.