{ Red Experiment P4.9 }

When planting a vineyard, you’re faced with a myriad of choices – one of which is the clonal selection of each variety. For our vineyard, we had no prior history and were curious to explore so we planted a mix of both French clones and local, historical clones. In the end, these would always be blended together – but that peaked our interest: What do they taste like singularly? In creating the 2009 P4.9, we explored what a single clone of Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc – both French, but grown here on the estate – would taste and how that would evolve with time.

Each of these lots were fermented and aged separately for the first year. We took careful notes as we sat down to blend, paying attention to the aromas, weight and individual components of these French clones. We then blended Clone 337 Cabernet Sauvignon with Clone 332 Cabernet Franc and aged that blend for a further 6 months before bottling.

Each clone displayed unique characteristics. Clone 337 Cabernet Sauvignon classically contributes darker notes of blackberry, black cherry and cola, while the 332 clone of Cabernet Franc exudes brighter aromas of boysenberry, rhubarb, blueberry and violets. One important and affirming result from this experiment was the constant expression of the site – regardless of the clone or part of the vineyard we were tasting, the voice of our beautiful piece of Pritchard Hill was dominant.