Cabernet Franc's Next Frontier? A Studied Approach to Aging
Concrete eggs, steel tanks, and neutral oak embolden an already indomitable grape.
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Cabernet Franc is a bewitching grape variety, one many wine drinkers readily name as their favorite. Its balance of red fruit, savory herbs, and green pepper flavor characters, alongside notes of spice, render it iconically food friendly, its potential interplay with culinary profiles immeasurable. In cooler climate regions, ripening is slow over a long growing season; pyrezines, the compounds behind those peppery flavors, are fresh and more immediate. In warmer climates, raspberry and cherry notes are ever more in concert with those notes, and wines can be plush and terranean.
The grape’s global reach is also profound. Cabernet Franc is the parent grape for Cabernet Sauvignon (along with Sauvignon Blanc), Merlot (along with Magdalene Noire des Charentes, a grape traced to the 14th century in western France that’s also a parent of Malbec), Carménère (along with Gros Cabernet) and a Basque grape, Hondarribi Beltza. It goes by Breton, Vidure, Bordo, Gros Bouchet, Sable Rouge (among other names) and is expressive in Saint-Émilion’s clay terraces, Saint-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil and Chinon in the Loire Valley, and in New York’s three major wine regions, the Hudson Valley, the Finger Lakes, and Long Island. Also: in Bergerac, Languedoc, northeast Italy, eastern Spain, Portugal, eastern Europe and the eastern Mediterranean, South America, Canada, Australia, Asia, Africa, and throughout the U.S..
As Cabernet Franc is eloquent within a plurality of terroirs, the next frontier for vintners like Steven Mirassou who, along with his father, established The Steven Kent Winery in California’s Livermore Valley in 1996, is discerning how those varied flavor profiles change, or how singular flavors refind delicate harmonies after time to evolve in wood and concrete aging vessels. Mirassou, who also publishes Wine Saves Lives! co-founded the Cab Franc Guild of Livermore Valley and, with his wife Beth, created an annual celebration of Cabernet Franc, CabFranc-A-Palooza.
Mirassou’s 2024 vintage is a studious undertaking, aging four Cabernet Franc vinifications from the Morgensen Vineyard, 774 feet above sea level in the Livermore Valley AVA’s Crane Ridge District, for fourteen months each, in four different vessels: neutral barrels (meaning, they aren’t new, and thus impart less oak impact), stainless steel tanks, concrete eggs, and in “Elements,” a blend of all three fermentation vessels within one wine.
The project complements winemaker James Marshall-Lockyer’s inspired 2023 vintage of Onda, a 100% Cabernet Franc bottling from Tenuta Licinia, in the Tuscan province of Arezzo. ‘Onda’ means ‘wave,’ in reference to “the way the land is around Licinia, where small hills progressively and seamlessly seep into each other,” says Marshall-Lockyer. Onda is grown on thin slate soils in the historic Sasso di Fata vineyard, once known as the "Vigna del Calcione," replanted in 2007 by Anne and Jacques de Liedekerke.
The 2023 vintage proved uniquely aromatic, “ripe but very fresh, in a raspberry-floral sort of way,” describes Marshall-Lockyer. That singular intensity and the wine’s continued evolution in foudre (a larger oak vessel than a barrel, resulting in a more diffuse oak impact) compelled Marshall-Lockyer and his team to bottle a 100% Cabernet Franc. The wine is aged for ten months in foudre and then six months in concrete, the combination subtly amplifying tension and complexity, and then texture, respectively.
“The idea came from the vineyard and then the result, rather than as a premeditated decision,” explains Marshall-Lockyer.
In considering aging vessels, says Marshall-Lockyer, “The question is, what hierarchy of aesthetic values are you committed to? Do you value texture and roundness more than beauty with aromas and flavors? Is oak flavor as beautiful or close to as beautiful as the best flavors of the vineyard? I answer ‘no,’ so preserve the flavors from the vineyard. Answering ‘yes’ would mean using a more intense oak regime.”
Mirassou’s experiments are intentional and designed to be revisited, inviting consumers to take the same studious, curious approach to tasting; and, contrasts among the four wines are immediately discernible.
Wines without any oak influence (Steel and Rock, the latter aged in a concrete egg) are fruit-forward. Steel is exuberant and bright, expressing raspberries, cherries, and refined bell pepper notes, while Rock is a lovely sheer ruby with a lighter body and enfolded tannins; it’s food friendly instinctively for its brightness, and will become a wine that Steven Kent Winery sells to restaurants.
“Pyrezine contributes glorious complexity in Cab Franc. The aging vessel can either exacerbate this effect, as with concrete egg and stainless steel tanks or, in the case of new oak, tame it slightly,” explains Mirassou.
By contrast Wood, aged in neutral oak barrels, is reminiscent of a classic Bordeaux wine, with secondary flavors and aromas like chocolate and tobacco. Elements, a fusion of the previous three, expresses a deeper hue, and, like the Wood variation, offers characters like cocoa, mocha, and spice.
Marshall-Lockyer and Mirassou both observe that such trials with Cabernet Franc have great promise, due to the grape’s intrinsic aromatics.
“It has a lighter and more floral profile than Cabernet Sauvignon, and is less tannic. There’s less to soften, and more to preserve aromatically,” explains Marshall-Lockyer.
Mirassou and his team draw their inspiration from Loire Valley Cabernet Franc, from Saumur-Champigny, Chinon, and Saint-Nicolas-de-Bourgeuil.
“Even at their richest, these wines show a transparency that’s revelatory and flat-out delicious. We try to make Cab Francs that show this multitude of layers as well,” he explains.
Mirassou anticipates continued experimentation, for example, vinifying traditional method sparkling wine, trialing neutral wood fermentations of Cab Franc Blanc, and making vermouth from Cabernet Franc. Marshall-Lockyer has interest in aging Cabernet Franc in small concrete vessels to see what the outcome might be, and also notes lees (spent yeast cells) management can further be leveraged to impact each wine’s ultimate expression.
“It’s exciting that many producers have left behind the caricatural ‘only new oak’ approach—lots of interesting experimentation is crucially less interventionist. The interconnection between the different parts of winemaking and viticulture can then receive more focus,” says Marshall-Lockyer.
“Wine is a bottomless thing, inviting—for those drinkers who are so disposed—us to venture ever deeper into a sensory life. Cab Franc is the most interesting door into that kind of life,” concludes Mirassou.
I love the quizzes!
@Alan Goldfarb thanks for sharing