The second wine club selection for the month of May from the Fine Wine Source in Livonia, Michigan is Foxglove Cabernet Sauvignon Paso Robles 2017.  A couple of months ago, the selection was a Foxglove Zinfandel.  Monthly wine club selections are usually affordable wine and normally wines that most people wouldn’t necessarily grab off of a shelf.  It is a great way to get the customer into the wine shop at least once a month and at the Fine Wine Source it enables one to get case pricing, even if you are only buying one to eleven bottles, so it is a great inducement to pay a monthly fee and get a couple of bottles of wine that may be out of one’s normal range of selection.

Foxglove is a label from Varner Wines, that are made by the twin brothers Bob and Jim Varner.  They began planting vines at their estate in 1980, but they only began their own commercial wine label in 1996.  Varner Wines produce designated vineyard, terroir driven Chardonnay and Pinot Noir wines from Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz Counties.  The grapes that do not make the cut for the Varner label are released under the Neely label.   The Foxglove label produces around twenty-five-thousand cases each year of value priced wines; like a Chardonnay from the Central Coast and a Cabernet Sauvignon and a Zinfandel from Paso Robles.  The average age for the Cabernet Sauvignon vines is twenty years.  There are scant notes on technical information for this wine, other than full destemming and Malo-lactic fermentation.

Tasting notes for this wine, and I have not tried it yet, are silky tannins with super-ripe dark cherry, tobacco, licorice and plum, and proffered as one of the best values in California Cabernet Sauvignon.  The owner of the shop opines that there are flavors of cedar, boysenberry and cherries with a long silky finish.  Over the years, I have probably drunk more Cabernet Sauvignon wine than anything else, so it shall be an interesting wine to try.