The Playful Profundity of Cab Franc

Unmask the grape, leave away the wood and the over-extraction; eschew bigness and choose instead just the simple, unadulterated, the I-get-up-out-of-bed-looking-like-this gorgeousness, and you have the truest expression of Cabernet Franc. No other grape is as consistently surprising and reaffirming at the same time. When you drink Cabernet Sauvignon consistently, especially from the same region, what you get are differences in amplitude, not differences in the strings and heart of the wine. Hey, singer X is great and all that, but there is nothing to be learned from him if all you do is change the volume. That’s Cabernet Sauvignon. Cabernet Franc is that singer, but that singer if he changed to a she then changed back to a different he, was French, then sang the ululations of certain South African tribes, then sang the operas of Puccini, then yodeled as none has ever yodeled before.¹

I will deny any and all catcalls of snobbery. The simple fact is that not all wines are equal. There is a wine for every mood and food, of and for every moment.² There are great wines at all price points, but not every wine is alive, not every wine has the power to surprise, not every wine can take your breath away.

Those moments of surprise and playful profundity are the bailiwick of Cab Franc. There is no other grape that is as thrilling and delicious and affordable and palate-provoking and mysterious and complex and criminally underdrunk as this sexily magisterial variety.

Beth Mirassou, winemaker for the Steven Kent Winery, surrounded by some of her amazing Livermore Cab Francs.

Cab Franc is not comfortable in the mundane way of Cabernet Sauvignon and Pinot Noir. You can find many versions grown at the verges of acceptable climate that force questions and demand opinions — good and yech. But it does make you - the drinker - think and truly experience. Not every wine is a Hallmark TV special. Sometimes, the bite and herbality, the grape’s proud yawp are too much for the new drinker.