The name comes from Akiko's blends always coming in first in the blind staff tastings held every year.
The 2018 Akiko's Cuvée has a clear, bright purple color and displays the savory aromas that are typical of this wine.
While this wine usually takes time to develop its aroma, this vintage releases beautiful aromas of wet earth, thyme and other herbs, and French oak barrels as soon as it is poured into the glass.
It has the seamless flavor of spice, fruit, oak and soft tannins typical of Pinot Noir, with some pronounced acidity.
The best time to drink this wine is from 2020 to 2030.
Akiko's Cuvee is a special wine that has been released every year since Freeman's first vintage in 2002.
The wine is then evaluated in a blind tasting with other staff members after winemaker Akiko Freeman and consultant Ed Kurtzman each taste the barrels during aging and create a blend that they think will work best.
And because the blends that Akiko creates every year are the staff's favorites, the name of this wine stuck.
Akiko's blend was selected again in 2015, and all of the wines released that year were made using blends proposed by Akiko.
The majority of this vintage's Akiko's Cuvée comes from grapes harvested on two of Freeman's own vineyards, Yuki and Gloria.
In 2018, both vineyards produced excellent grapes.
Approximately a quarter of the wine comes from KR Ranch (since 2004) and Pratt (since 2005), both of which Freeman has been working with for many years.
For winemakers and grape growers, 2018 was a dream year.
The weather was perfect for high yields and well-balanced grapes, and it was the first year since 2012 that we were spared a late summer heat wave.
In other words, it was a year in which they could decide the timing of their harvest without being affected by the weather.
Not only was the fruit perfectly ripe, but it was also the cleanest we've harvested in our 17th vintage.
Freeman Vineyards & Winery was founded in 2001 by Ken Freeman and his wife Akiko, a Roppongi native.
Fifteen years ago, when the two had just met, they hit it off as lovers of elegant and sophisticated Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, and dreamed of one day producing wines in California that had the complex flavor and captivating power of Burgundy.
In order to establish a winery that can rival the world, we will begin inspecting over 300 vineyards and farms, focusing on vineyards planted on cool, gentle slopes.
As a result, they chose Sonoma Valley, a region shrouded in fog and influenced by cool sea breezes blowing inland from the coast.
The grapes grown there ripen slowly, retaining fresh acidity and resulting in great purity and flavour.
When Freeman was founded in the 2000s, California was in the midst of a boom in the production and consumption of fruit-forward wines, but the company remained uninfluenced by such trends and stuck to its belief of brewing well-balanced, elegant wines based on organic farming.
As a result, Freeman's wine style began to attract attention not only in California but also around the world, and its wines were included on the wine lists of famous restaurants around the world, growing into a small but well-known brand.
In April 2015, a bottle of Ryofu Chardonnay from the 2013 vintage was served at the White House official dinner hosted by former President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, catapulting the wine into the limelight.
As of 2019, Akiko is the only Japanese female winemaker and owner of a winery and vineyard in California, and she continues to produce modest, sharp, high-quality wines.