Cabernet Franc Reserve 2023

Our success in gaining recognition of Cabernet Franc as a freestanding varietal for crafting fine wine, consistently shares a spotlight of distinction with our development of Octagon, the winery’s classic Bordeaux blend. If there were not an Octagon, and if Cabernet Franc were the only varietal grown at the estate, then a generalized distinction would come into much more clarifying relief: Cabernet Franc’s prestige as a red wine of suppleness, finesse, elegance and age-worthiness would be just that much more obvious, and this would be perceived to be a genuinely distinctive contribution of our terroir to the varietal’s reputation.

The estate took the lead in planting Cabernet Franc in Virginia in 1976, which revealed the varietal’s natural adaptability to our fluctuating climatic conditions, almost beyond comparison among red wine grapes. Nor was this adaptability unassisted by our famously temperate climate, for we found that certain vineyard blocks of Cabernet Franc will perform unpredictably better than others, in alternating growing seasons. Overall, moreover, we were discovering our weather patterns to be ideal for the balanced ripening of this varietal, raising it above its tendency in colder regions to exhibit green pepper as a signature of less ripeness, while avoiding the baked fruit effects of hotter regions.

In our first 16 vintages we, ourselves, adhered to custom in producing Cabernet Franc only as a grape for blending, primarily with Cabernet Sauvignon. With the excellent 1992 vintage we could no longer resist fermenting, aging, and bottling the wine by itself, and refocused our commitment to the grape.

From the earliest 1990s, we launched upon a systematic expansion of cultivation, diversified both in site selection and in plant materials, which dwarfs that of every other Virginia vineyard in scale, consistency, and critical success, and at 40 acres in vine represents an above-average estate of its own in this region. In 1993, we doubled our original 4 acres with new plant materials from Bordeaux selections, in an 8-acre expansion. Within the following decade, all of that new growth would be replanted on superior rootstock, with further diversification of selections. In 1994 we added 4.5 acres in another new site, and in 2000, 3 more, in 3 new selections from Bordeaux. In 2010, another 4 acres, in 2013, another 5. Repeatedly, our viticulturist Fernando Franco has traveled to California and to St. Émilion, investigating plant selections closely with growers in both regions, while Professor of Oenology Denis Dubourdieu has traveled from Bordeaux to consult with us on-site.

With the watershed award of the first Virginia Governor’s Cup for Cabernet Franc in 1999, for our 1997 vintage, the whole region began to pursue this varietal with almost unanimous concentration. But the result of our commitments is a capability, through our range of seasonal conditions, to produce Cabernet Franc under its own varietal name, which is conspicuously welcomed by sommeliers besieged by the more numerous Bordeaux blends. From London to Rome, to Chicago to San Francisco, the winery’s Cabernet Franc has found a niche for itself in restaurant lists of the highest discernment and respect for regional distinctiveness in wine. Fully a third of our friends cite “their” Cabernet Franc as their favorite among all our reds, and in competitions it is constantly vying only with Octagon for highest honors. There is no reason for this but the varietal’s inclination to be grown in our terroir, which we repay with the most assiduous and exuberant efforts of our own.