Julie & Toby Bainbridge, Cuvée Highway 8 2018

This is a fresh and lively red from Julie & Toby Bainbridge who work four hectares of vines in Anjou, located in France's picturesque Loire Valley.

Tasting Notes: Plummy fruit, lightly piquant spice, and some earth demonstrate how rare this carbonically macerated cab. franc is: a balanced, complex glou-glou. It is light and green but not rooty or stalkish. It is juicy without being a juicy bomb. It carries spice without offending the front of the palate. A gem from the Anjou (although the cuvee's name is an homage to a specific stretch of road stateside).

Vinification: 100% Cabernet Franc, from 85 year-old vines atop black schist soil. Hand-harvested, fermented with native yeasts in two fiberglass vats using the method of carbonic maceration. Slight CO2 is left in the bottle to protect/preserve the wine, so do not be surprised if there is slight effervescence. Unfined, unfiltered, no SO2 at bottling. 

And this producer background from Fifi's Imports wonderful website:

"In 2012, after a few years under the tutelage and employ of Rene Mosse, Toby and Julie went out on their own and started full-time production on their eponymous domaine.  Toby's an ex-pat from the UK, and Julie found him working on her parent's farm in Arkansas. After a long courtship they settled in Anjou with their two young children. They focus on wines for drinking: fresh, bright and natural."