The rise of California Cabernet Franc plus 20 top wines worth seeking out

In the wake of the second destructive wave of the phylloxera bug in California in the 1980s and 1990s, Cabernet Sauvignon rose to such prominence and dominance (especially in Napa Valley) that I, like most people, assumed it must now be the most expensive grape variety in the state. Wrong. That would be Cabernet Franc.

Top 20 California Cabernet Franc wines

Slowly, steadily and quietly, Cabernet Sauvignon’s father has displaced its son* as the priciest grape to buy and the grape that is generating ripples of excitement – especially in Napa and Sonoma Valleys. (*Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc are the parent grapes of Cabernet Sauvignon.)

At this year’s Taste of Oakville culinary celebration (15 February to 10 March), where Harlan, Heitz, Opus One, Screaming Eagle and a score of other stars all pour their wines, I asked a dozen top winemakers which grape (besides Cabernet Sauvignon) Oakville would be known for in future. The majority answered Cabernet Franc.

Perfume & texture

In a place where powerful wines sit on a pedestal, Cabernet Franc’s ascendency can seem puzzling at first. The variety is sleeker, less muscular, less extroverted, and ‘less everything’ than Cabernet Sauvignon. ‘It waits for you to notice it,’ says Diana Snowden Seysses, winemaker at Napa’s Snowden vineyards (and oenologist at Domaine Dujac in Burgundy). ‘It can be alluring, shifting, ethereal and mysterious.’ These are all good descriptions of Snowden’s excellent 2018 Cabernet Franc from the Melchior Kemper vineyard in Napa Valley.

Yet, at the same time, California Cabernet Franc is anything but frail. ‘I think Cabernet Franc’s sensuous texture and fresh savoury aromas can be like lightning bolts,’ says Tom Garrett, owner and winemaker of Detert Family Vineyards, whose vines in a rocky alluvial fan off the Mayacamas mountains are the oldest Cabernet Franc in Napa Valley and thought to be the oldest in the state. ‘There are rich notes of tobacco, anise, sage and something lifted, fresh and herbal to Cabernet Franc,’ he explains.

The notion of something savoury and ‘herbal in a good way’ was repeated by every winemaker I talked to. ‘Cab Franc has a perfume and prettiness,’ says Cathy Corison of Corison and Helios. ‘It’s a dried Provence herb character that if you’re not careful can tip over into full-on green.’

Green. It’s almost a dirty word in California – at least with Cabernet Sauvignon, which some growers go so far as picking on the cusp of overripeness to avoid any hint of greenness. Franc is a different story. The grape almost seems to give California winemakers permission to stray into aromas and flavours that, if not quite as bell peppery as one might find in, say, Loire Cab Francs such as Chinon, add greenish intrigue reminiscent of green tea, roasted green chilli peppers, bay laurel and resinous mountain chaparral.

‘I’m not afraid of green with Cabernet Franc,’ says Marla Carroll, winemaker at Antica, the Napa property owned by Italy’s Antinori family. ‘Green notes add an underlying complexity and it makes Cabernet Franc taste so good with food.’

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Cabernet Franc vs Cabernet Sauvignon in California

Total plantings in California (2021) Cabernet Franc 1,376ha (of which 498ha are in Napa Valley); Cabernet Sauvignon 38,652ha

Average price per US ton [907.2kg] in California (2020) Cabernet Franc $2,995; Cabernet Sauvignon $1,230.

Average price per ton in Napa Valley (2020) Cabernet Franc $7,447; Cabernet Sauvignon $6,487.

Source: California department of food and agriculture 2021 & 2020 [/boxout]

When Cab Franc arrived

How and when Cabernet Franc arrived in California is not completely clear. The grape variety is thought to be Basque in origin, and ancient. It appears to have moved from northern Spain to Bordeaux and then the Loire.

In California, it may have been one of the varieties brought in the 1860s by Hungarian wheeler-dealer Agoston Haraszthy who, in 1857 founded Sonoma’s Buena Vista winery. Within a few years, with 120ha of vineyards, it was the largest winery in the state and remains California’s oldest continuously operated winery. One of Haraszthy’s coups was to convince the nascent California legislature to send him to Europe, where he studied viticulture, ultimately returning to Sonoma with 100,000 French, German, Spanish and Italian vine cuttings of 300 different varieties.

If Haraszthy didn’t bring in the first Cabernet Franc, Charles Wetmore probably did. In the 1880s, Wetmore, a newspaper journalist turned lawyer turned winemaker, persuaded the California legislature to establish the state viticultural commission. As the commission’s first president, he headed straight for Bordeaux where he obtained plant material from several sources – including cuttings of Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon from Château d’Yquem.

The first official evidence of importation dates from 1938 when Dr Harold Olmo, a geneticist and grape breeder at the University of California at Davis, imported Cabernet Franc vines from France’s University of Montpellier. Olmo’s Cabernet Franc is now referred to as Clone 01. But it wasn’t until the early 2000s that a slew of virus-free ENTAV clones of French Cabernet Franc became available in California. And that accelerated Cabernet Franc’s history stateside.

‘In 1996, I had my pick of any Napa Valley Cabernet Franc I wanted,’ says John Skupny, who has made varietally labelled Cabernet Franc for 26 years under his Lang & Reed brand. ‘Ten years later, thanks to the importation of better French clones, I was having to look to other regions for decent-quality Cabernet Franc that was decently priced. Better plant material escalated the demand by wineries and drove prices skyward.’

But Skupny points to another even earlier factor that propelled Franc’s popularity: the creation of Insignia, California’s first proprietary red Bordeaux-style blend. ‘When Joseph Phelps winery came out with Insignia in 1974,’ he says, ‘all of a sudden every top winery in Napa wanted all five Bordeaux varieties to make their own proprietary blends.’

A revelation in style

Over the course of a week in May 2022, a colleague and I blind tasted 60 California Cabernet Francs, most of which were from the areas where the grape is most planted: Napa Valley and the warmer interior valleys of Sonoma. The tasting revealed that in style, structure and flavour, most northern California Cabernet Franc is most definitely not Chinon, Bourgeuil or even Bordeaux-like.

Napa and Sonoma’s more ample sun and higher temperatures mean that Cabernet Franc here has a rich core of violetty-blue fruit. That said, most wines we tried were not flabby or blowsy, thanks to the variety’s counterbalancing freshness and acidity. Cabernet Franc is generally an early ripener but, even then, many winemakers pick on the early side of early. ‘Overripe Cabernet Franc is clumsy, heavy and lacks the delightful kaleidoscope of aromas that dance in the glass,’ says Snowden Seysses.

Tannin profiles, too, are different. California Cabernet Francs often have a lot of fine tannins and immense structure. No surprise when you see the vineyards. Most are extremely rocky and dry – either because they are in the mountains or in gravelly alluvial fans that have slid down mountains. (In a California twist on the idea of a French clos, some of these vineyards are ringed by boulders more than 4m high.)

Many of the top sites are also at altitudes well above 180m. And almost uniformly the vines are cropped at low yields, often under five tonnes per hectare. (For comparison’s sake, this is about half the average yield of Cabernet Sauvignon in Napa Valley). Says Garrett: ‘Cabernet Franc in California is extremely site-specific. It quickly tells you where it does not want to be.’

The relative scarcity of great sites for Cabernet Franc will always limit the variety’s growth. And yet, as those sites are discovered and the number of hectares planted cautiously climbs (and the price, not so cautiously, climbs too), the excitement about Cabernet Franc continues to mount.

‘Franc is an old variety,’ says Aaron Pott of Pott & Daughters winery on Napa Valley’s Mount Veeder. ‘As such, it is closer than Cabernet Sauvignon to its wild parentage. Vines that are more closely related to wild vines are generally more sensitive to the terroir in which they are grown, and they often reveal their terroir more immediately and compellingly.’

And my tasting of 60 California Cabernet Francs was the perfect evidence.

Top 20 California Cabernet Franc wines

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