From a wine with no color at all, to one whose pinkness evokes languorous summer days at the sea; from new sites whose promise is heartbreaking, to fully two-thirds (40 tons) of our harvest in the last four days of a 60-day season, 2023 Cabernet Franc has already changed the future of our brand.
[Cabernet Franc] is a better wine with more different kinds of food, shows more completely in a wider variety of styles, and just puts its child to shame in its compelling sexiness and allure.
Long a staple of our BDX collection of varieties, Cab Franc took a back seat to Cabernet Sauvignon, the more widely planted and more universally accepted grape in and from the Livermore Valley. New sites were planted over time, and to our credit, I think, we learned more about what made Cabernet Franc so spectacular and so deserving of the focus we are now bringing to it. And all that we will get to experience as we try to sound its bottomless depths over the next generations jazzes us up every day!
We have a lot of wine to make yet, and each vintage brings about new insights and shines an ever brighter light on the diamond that is this wondrous grape. We can’t help but look a little down the road (not so much as to distract us from what’s in our glass right now) as we aspire to become one of the preeminent producers of Cab Franc in the US.
Cabernet Franc is the grape that should have ascended to the height that its child has achieved, given that it is so much more delicious and interesting than Cabernet Sauvignon. It is a better wine with more different kinds of food, shows more completely in a wider variety of styles and just puts its child to shame in its compelling sexiness and allure.
But all the better for The Steven Kent Winery that Cab Franc is just now massing an unmistakable and growing level of interest from wine drinkers around the country, just as our hearts have grown large enough to accept it and our winemaking skills diverse enough to do right by it.
So we kick off the new year yearning for the release of the wines from the vintage just passed. We are not quite there yet, but — perhaps — the descriptions of our future portfolio will not only whet your appetite for these wines but will also cause you to grab a bottle of Cab Franc from your cellar and drink to this grape’s becoming!
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Wine Saves Lives! to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.