One of the questions we get most often in our tasting room is “what does cab franc go with?” My immediate answer of “everything!”, though true, isn’t usually sufficient.
I’m an enthusiastic amateur when it comes to the kitchen, but I do read a lot about cooking and descend into the youtube cooking video rabbit hole too frequently. My job allows me the opportunity to eat out fairly frequently, and an open kitchen is the best classroom.
Cab Franc lets me get away with a lot of mistakes and too little contemplation when thinking about the best pairings. Because of its structure and relationship to savory herbs and acidity,1 Cab Franc has an affinity for more types of cuisine than any other grape.
When I do cook thoughtfully, I look at how to forge a relationship between the wine’s dominant feature, it’s abundant fruit (or the opposite), it’s acid drive, the amount of wood that shows through its fruit, its youthfulness, whether herbs are ratcheted up, and then I think about what it is I’m really hungry for.
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