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blend goes to…
If you are relatively new to enjoying wines, you may not have ever heard
of Cabernet Franc. It is even more unlikely that you have ever had a
Cabernet Franc wine. However, I would be willing to bet that you have
enjoyed, at some point, a wine that contained a little Cabernet Franc in the
blend. That is what Cabernet Franc has primarily come to be known as, a
blending grape. Some of the most famous wines in the world benefit from
a little Cabernet Franc in their structural make-up. This would include the
great wines of Bordeaux and even some of your more well known
California “Cult” Cabernet’s and Meritage’s (Meritage is a wine blend).
So what’s the deal? Why is this very important wine grape not well known
and seemingly under appreciated? Honestly, I don’t have all the answers.
It is capable of making very good wines on it’s own and it is not all fussy
about where or how it is grown. Under the right conditions, it can create a
wine with a lot of backbone to give it some moderate ageability. You
would think serious wine drinkers and innovative winemakers alike would
be all-over Cabernet Franc wines, but they haven’t. I guess if you wanted
to point out a reason that it may have never caught on you could assign
part of the blame on it’s extraordinarily popular son. That’s right,
Cabernet Franc along with the famous white grape, Sauvignon Blanc, are
the proud parents of arguably the most prestigious wine grape in the
world. Any guesses as to what grape that might be? Let’s see, Cabernet
Franc and Sauvignon Blanc, combine the two names and you get “Franc
Blanc”. Nope, never heard of that before! What about “Sauvignon
Franc”? That sounds classy, but again, to the best of my knowledge there
is no wine grape by that name. I’m just shooting in the dark here, but
maybe there is a wine grape by the name of, say, Cabernet
Sauvignon…yes, I do seem to recall that name being thrown around in
‘elite’ wine circles.
I guess the ridiculous point I am trying to drive home here is that the
reputation of Cabernet Sauvignon has vastly overshadowed Cabernet
Franc and that could be one reason that we do not see more wines made
from Cabernet Franc. Winemakers in the New World outside of France
are more eager to plant Cabernet Sauvignon because in their minds, it is a
sure thing. Cabernet Franc to them is an unproven commodity that may or
may not catch on with the wine-drinking market. Not to mention, it lacks
the prestige of Cabernet Sauvignon and always will. (My opinion of
course).
Cabernet Franc is grown in many places around the world, France, Italy,
New Zealand, Australia, New York, Washington State and California, but
very few wines are ever made using entirely Cabernet Franc grapes. I
might also add that even though Cabernet Franc is grown in many places,
it is only in France, where it has at least 35,000 acres, that it is grown in
any abundance. By contrast for example, California only has about 2,000
acres of Cabernet Franc grapes planted, most of which are in Napa and
Sonoma. Clearly, the rest of the world has taken a queue from Bordeaux
and seen the grape's potential as a blending grape and not a lead one,
otherwise, the amount of acres planted to Cabernet Franc would be
significantly higher.
Now quite francly (get it?), if there were no wines made entirely from
Cabernet Franc, there would be no reason for the Dallas Secret Wine
Society to cover it as a “Wine of The Month”, but alas, there are some
shinning examples of wines around the world where Cabernet Franc is the
star. The Loire region of France in particular probably produces more
Cabernet France wines than any other in the world and the grape has
shown that it really likes the conditions or Terroir in that region, producing
very intriguing wines that do have some ageability. A lot of California
wineries are starting to produce more and more wines made from
Cabernet Franc, in particular, the lesser-known wineries who are looking
for another angle into the wine market share. Who wants to make just
another Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot, right?
Believe it or not though, there is probably more wines made from
Cabernet Franc in New York and Washington State than in California.
There is a logical reason for this. It is actually the same reason that this
wine varietal seems to work well in places like Northern Italy and New
Zealand. This grape can really thrive where other wine grapes falter in
Cool Climates. New York and Washington has plenty of cool weather.
Why does it do better than others in cooler climates? It is because the
grape ripens earlier than most grapes and when you have a shorter
growing season, the shorter the ripening period for a grape, the better off
the wine will be.
Cabernet Franc is a tough cookie and proves to be much more resistant to
cold winters which is something that most winemakers in New York would
have to jump for joy about. It is not finicky in the vineyard and pretty
easy for the winemaker to steer in the flavor profile direction they intend
on making. The more exposure to sunlight the grape gets, the fruitier the
wine style will be and the less it is exposed to sunlight, the more
vegetative qualities it will take on.
It has a thinner skin than Cabernet Sauvignon, which translates into less
tannins, and because it ripens earlier than Cabernet Sauvignon it has
much less acidity. These are two very important factors in a red wine’s
ability to age and therefore another reason winemakers will favor
Cabernet Sauvignon over it’s proud parent, Cabernet Franc. Cabernet
Franc doesn’t typically produce the ultra-complex wines that thicker-
skinned grapes produce, but their flavors are distinct. On the fruity end of
the spectrum they have a tendency to show red fruit flavors like
raspberry, cherry, plum and strawberry. It may show floral notes of
violets in the nose and quite frequently has herbal overtones of grass,
tobacco and bell peppers. A little bottle age can produce more earthy
flavors of mushroom, cedar, musk, earth and cigar box. When it is given
light oak treatment it shows vanilla and coconut aromas. When heavy oak
is used, you will notice more tar, toast, smoke and oak flavors. Most
examples of Cabernet Franc wines have a thin to medium body and are
soft and silky on the palate. All in all, I find them to be very much the red
wine equivalent to Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon’s other parental
grape. That is to say, they seem to have a strong vegetative quality about
them. This factor gives them the edge over other red wines when pairing
them to strong flavored vegetable dishes.
It is probably the Loire region in France where this grape hits its highest
marks in quality. If for nothing else, they have had more experience in
using Cabernet Franc as a dominant grape varietal for a wine. If you are
curious about trying a Cabernet Franc wine from the Loire region in
France, look for the red wines in the Loire Appellations of Chinon,
Bourgueil, Saumer-Champigny, and Anjou-Villages. These appellations
produce some of the best Cabernet Franc wines in the world.
However, it is probably Bordeaux, France where Cabernet Franc became
known to the rest of the wine-loving world. Not as a grape with a major
role, but one that plays a significant supporting role. In fact this grape can
single handedly save a poor vintage for Bordeaux winemakers and that is
precisely why they use it in their Bordeaux wine blends. In years when
harvest time rains wreak havoc on Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot grapes,
the ever dependable early ripening Cabernet Franc grapes that have
already been successfully harvested weeks before, can be added to the
blend of the Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot wines giving them more
backbone and character. Thus saving a wine that would have been diluted
by rain and a complete washout for Bordeaux Chateaus (Wineries).
Hopefully in the near future there will be more of an abundance of
Cabernet Franc wines made from various places in the world and
especially here in the states. For now, they can be a little tricky to find
and are usually a little pricey, around the twenty-dollar range and up.
They are priced at that amount because of the level of risk involved for
the wineries producing it. It can be tough as well as quite a gamble to
introduce a different wine style to the market. I would encourage you to
try one if you have never had a Cabernet Franc wine, especially if you are
cooking for one of those goofy vegetarians that don’t eat meat. The
nerve! The wine really does have a lot to offer the world. It may not have
starred in any blockbuster wines that you have tried recently, but I’d be
willing to bet it was there in the background, playing a strong supportive
role!
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