How to serve your Paradise Rescued 2010 Bordeaux Cabernet Franc

Our 2010 Cloud9 and B1ockOne branded Paradise Rescued Bordeaux Cabernet Franc is tasting superb – and peaking in its maturity. Here we share a few notes on how to store, serve and drink our wine in order to get the best from it.

It is also worth making a couple of up front comments about how we bottle our wines at Paradise Rescued as this helps to understand why the storage serving and drinking tips are so relevant.

Full varietal Bordeaux Cabernet Franc by Paradise Rescued

Wine Sediment

At Paradise Rescued, we believe in getting as much taste of the grape fruit into glass as possible. This means that we only apply a very gentle filtration at bottling time as we don’t want to remove any of the good stuff that makes a quality wine. Over time, tartrates will deposit out – quite often you will see these crystallised out on the wet side of the cork when you open the bottle.

Paradise Rescued wines are aged in barrel for 11-12 months. We allow the barrel maturation process “on the lees” or with some left over grape wine yeast present in the barrel to enrichen the wine’s flavour. And hence why throughout the barrel maturation process, we stir the contents of each barrel (called ‘batonage’ in French) to mix the lees back into the wine.

As the maturation process continues in bottle, some of the remaining micro particles of yeast, skins, stems and seeds – sometimes referred to as colloids – solidify out of the wine and create sediment. None of these sediments are harmful. More often than not, they contribute to and indicate a vintage wine of quality.

Corks

At Paradise Rescued, we use corks to seal our wine. For our organic wines, they provide a perfect barrier that allows ever so tiny oxidation and air passage over a long period of time in order to mature the wine ahead of drinking. We always use a quality cork supplier who provides a taint free closure.

Storage

Lay the bottles down horizontally (to maintain the cork end moist and the bottle well sealed) in a cool dark quiet place. Try not to disturb them (too often) even if you do want to keep having a quick look! We also recommend that you store the horizontal bottles with the label uppermost.

Use a Paradise Rescued DropStop to pour your wine – no more drops on the table!

Preparation and opening

Twenty four hours before drinking or opening, remove the bottle from storage and stand upright – preferably in a cool dark location. This allows the sediment to slowly fall to the bottom of the bottle. Avoid shaking the bottle in any way.

Open the bottle of wine carefully. We recommend using a double lever sommelier’s friend type corkscrew as this will avoid the screw part of the device penetrating through the cork on the inside and breaking off a cork fragment which could be left behind in the bottle. Not a nice look in your guest’s glass!

Serving

Our Paradise Rescued wine loves some air to bring out the best in it just before drinking. The best way to do this is through either decanting into a wine decanter or double decanting from the wine bottle into a second clean empty bottle (use a funnel) before to returning it to the original bottle (after rinsing clean and drying).

When carrying out the decanting, fit a Paradise Rescued DropStop in the neck of the bottle being poured. Take out a bright torch lamp and as you slowly pour out the wine into the decanter or second bottle, hold the torch light on the underside of the bottle’s neck with the main front label of the wine bottle again in the uppermost position – assuming that you stored it that way. Continue to pour the wine slowly and steadily until you can see a stream of darker sediment in the wine entering the neck. If all has gone well, you should only only a small quantity of sediment wine remaining in the bottle.

Keep the wine cool, even chilled if you serving the wine on a warm day. The optimum serving temperature for a Cabernet Franc red wine is 14-16C. For a Shiraz or Cabernet Sauvignon wine the upper limit is 18C absolute maximum. If you have double decanted the wine back into its original bottle, the decanted wine can be stored in the fridge for a short period of time before serving. If you are serving using a decanter, we suggest that you chill first before decanting – most decanters don’t easily fit in a fridge or other cool place.

Chill! It’s ok to chill your Paradise Rescued Cabernet Franc before serving on a hot day.

Drinking

Decent quality glasses do add to the experience of serving and enjoying good wine. For a quality Bordeaux wine, a reasonably sized tulip shaped glass is ideal. If your slightly chilled wine is a little too cool, let it warm up in the palm of your hand. If the weather or room is hot, the job will be done for you very quickly allowing you to enjoy the taste of the wine at it’s best.

If you are serving from a bottle, use a DropStop to assist pouring and prevention of leaving stains on the table. If you were unable to decant the wine before serving, take care when pouring the last quarter of the bottle’s contents to avoid tipping sediment into your guest’s glass.

Enjoy as always in moderation.

Paradise Rescued is the 2016 International Business Award Silver Stevie winner for Small Budget Marketing Campaign. Would you like to use a DropStop to serve your wine? Join our Club today….