Kelly Washington, 2018 Cabernet Franc, Bridge Pa Triangle, Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand
Cab Franc du Jour #109
Kelly Washington Wines is a partnership between Tamra Washington and her husband Simon Kelly. Tamra grew up in Marlborough and was working in vineyards and restaurants from an early age, sparking a fascination with wine that led her to complete viticultural and oenology studies in New Zealand before working in California and Italy and eventually returning home. Kelly Washington is a premium négociant project, with Tamra working with key growers and select organically farmed vineyards across New Zealand.
Making Cabernet Franc has been part of Tamra’s mission since the very beginning. Having lived and worked in Europe for over seven years, she fell in love with Loire Valley Cabernet Franc and sought it out as often as she could. It took some time to find the right block, but eventually she located this special parcel of Franc in the Howell/Prospect Vineyard in the Bridge Pa Triangle sub-region of Hawke’s Bay, with 2018 as her first vintage.
Cabernet Franc in New Zealand
The overall Cabernet Franc picture in New Zealand is a modest one. Sauvignon Blanc dominates at around 26,559 hectares, representing 64% of total vineyard area, and the number one red variety is Pinot Noir at about 5,807 hectares. Cabernet Franc, by comparison, accounts for just 91 hectares across the entire country. The examples are few and far between, but those producers who do work with it are making some compelling expressions of the grape.
Of those 91 hectares, the majority, just over 60 hectares, are planted in Hawke’s Bay, the country’s leading region for Bordeaux red varieties and Syrah, which makes it the natural home for Cabernet Franc in New Zealand.
Hawke’s Bay
Hawke’s Bay is New Zealand’s second largest growing region, located on the east coast of the North Island, bound to the east by the Pacific Ocean and Hawke’s Bay itself, and to the west by the Ruahine and Kaweka mountain ranges. A series of ancient rivers descending from those mountains have carved out valleys, terraces, and plains that help define many of the region’s sub-regions.
The climate is cool to moderate maritime depending on location, with growing season temperatures running a touch cooler than Bordeaux overall. Conditions are warmest near the coast and cool gradually as you move inland. Summer temperatures can climb quite high, but the influence of the cool Pacific helps temper extremes. Hawke’s Bay also enjoys nearly 2,200 sunshine hours on average, making it one of New Zealand’s sunniest regions, with moderate annual rainfall of around 800mm in the main viticultural areas around Napier and Hastings, increasing further inland.
The region’s topography and river systems define its soils, with 25 major soil types identified across the area, giving rise to nine distinct sub-regions. The most famous is the Gimblett Gravels, but the largest is the Bridge Pa Triangle, which is where today’s wine originates.
The Bridge Pa Triangle
The Bridge Pa Triangle encompasses 1,250 hectares and sits about 17km inland from the coast, on the southern bank of the Ngaruroro River. The sub-region occupies one of several alluvial terraces carved out by the Ngaruroro over tens of thousands of years, another being the neighbouring Gimblett Gravels to the east. Cabernet Franc plantings in Hawke’s Bay are split fairly evenly between the two, with around 30 hectares in each, though the Bridge Pa Triangle runs slightly cooler than the Gimblett Gravels.
The Bridge Pa Triangle sits on the oldest soils of the Heretaunga Plain, the broad expanse of land where most of Hawke’s Bay’s wine sub-regions are concentrated. Three main soil groups are found here: alluvial sandy-loams and clay-loams derived from loess, volcanic ash, and greywacke, a type of sandstone. All three are relatively shallow, ranging from about 40 to 70cm in depth, overlying a deep subsoil known locally as red metals, iron-rich alluvial gravels with excellent water-holding capacity that provide a natural moisture balance without the need for irrigation.
The Howell/Prospect Vineyard
Today’s wine comes from a 0.2-hectare parcel of Cabernet Franc vines planted in 1997 in the southern part of the Bridge Pa Triangle. The vineyard has a north-facing exposure and is well protected from excess rainfall by a series of hills to the south. The vines are trained north-south, with the fruiting wire positioned on the eastern side of the canopy to ensure the bunches receive gentler morning sunshine, while the western side provides sufficient shading to protect the fruit from the more intense afternoon sun.
The block straddles two distinct soils: Ngatarawa sandy-loam in the upper portion and Irongate sandy-loam in the lower portion, both sitting over the red metal gravels beneath. Tamra notes that those red gravels contribute meaningfully to the finished wine’s depth and concentration, and that the site allows her to harvest early, with the fruit achieving good phenolic maturity while maintaining lower alcohol levels.
In the Cellar
Tamra’s approach with this wine is very much informed by the fruit the vineyard gives, and the intention is a Loire-inspired Cabernet Franc. The fruit is hand-harvested and destemmed before fermenting in small open-top stainless steel tanks with selected yeast, with very gentle pump-overs during active fermentation and a total skin contact of approximately 24 days. The wine is then aged in French oak barrels with 18% new oak for approximately 10 months before bottling.
Wine Details
Producer: Kelly Washington Wines
Region: Hawke’s Bay, North Island
Sub-Region: Bridge Pa Triangle
Vineyard: Howell/Prospect Vineyard
Soils: Ngatarawa sandy-loam and Irongate sandy-loam, atop ‘red metal’ alluvial gravels
Alcohol: 12.5%