Cabernet Franc has long since found fame in the wines of France’s Loire Valley – the grape of wines labelled Chinon, Bourgueuil, Saumur, Champigny or Anjou Rouge but, it is also favoured by other cooler climates around the world producing quality bottlings from Mendoza, California, Virginia and Stellenbosch.
Scroll down for 10 top-rated Cabernet Francs from around the world
It has soft tannins, moderate acidity and tons of charm and finesse combining bright raspberry fruit with intense floral aromatics and a silky texture akin to Pinot Noir. But it can also produce complex and structured wines and unlike Cabernet Sauvignon, which can take time to approach, they can be drunk young and with little or no oak treatment.
Some bottles can command large sums but many can be found at affordable prices.
The following list of 10 great Cabernet Francs comprises a mixture of single-varietal wines and grape-dominant blends.
Two of the 100% bottlings unsurprisingly come from the Loire with exceptional examples from Couly-Dutheil and Domaine de la Butte, priced £26 and £21 respectively, however varying in their expressions, the former being ‘attractive and youthful, with a smoky dark fruit core’ and the latter displaying ‘fresh hedgerow fruit scents with some intense violet, chocolate and damp earth notes’.
The others are spread across the globe with one of Italy’s best-known bottlings from Bolgheri in Tuscany – Le Macchiole’s Paleo 2016 scoring 96 points and noted as ‘soft and round with great volume on the palate’, Uco Valley with Rutini’s 2016, scoring 95 points and described as ‘seductive, classy and elegantly perfumed’ and Virginia with Ramiiisol’s Riserva 2014 rated 96 points, being ‘poised, resonant, with pepper and blackberry fruit and very silky tannins’.
See Ian D’Agata’s top Italian Cabernet Franc wines
South Africa is also a hot bed for both single-varietal Cabernet Francs and blends with plenty of good value wines to be found from producers including Vergelegen, Warwick and Raats whose 100% Cab Franc 2015 scored 96pts, available for around £25/$30 and MR de Compostella 2017 blend was rated 95 points.
Alternative highly-rated, but also more expensive (£100/$100+), blends include several from the USA namely California where a new wave of medium-bodied wines with charm and finesse are emerging. Sonoma County’s Vérité, Le Désir 2016 was highlighted for having a palate that is ‘broad and lush but exuberant, showing energy and flair’ while Napa Valley’s Smith Madrone and Favia have produced, respectively, a ‘generous and open’ 2013 and a ‘structured, well balanced and elegant’ 2015.
For more inexpensive drinking look to Doña Paula, 1350, 2017 from Uco Valley, available for less than £15/$20 and described by Andy Howard MW, in Decanter’s round up of exciting Argentinian wines under £25, as ‘cool and fresh in character: there is plenty of drive as well as complexity here.’
