Loire Cabernet Franc: Who Do You Think You Are?

It’s been a long time coming, but the red wine producers of the Loire Valley have reason to be proud of their main red grape variety, Cabernet Franc. In last year’s article, The Dark Days Are Over , I covered major changes occurring in both the vineyards and wineries, leading to riper, refined and expressive styles that should make the vignerons proud. No longer does Clos Rougeard stand alone as the international fine wine lovers only Loire red worthy of their shopping basket. The domaine’s former owners, the Foucault brothers, led the way. There’s been a trickle-down effect, in part due to the Foucaults’ generosity in sharing time and knowledge with younger winemakers coming up the ranks. The wine equivalent of the Amazon-like algorithm, if you liked this, you’ll like that would now suggest a plethora of Saumur-Champigny top guns including Domaine des Roches Neuves, Antoine Sanzay and Arnaud Lambert. Further east, Bourgueil’s Domaine du Bel Air, Yannick Amirault, Domaine de la Chevalerie and Guiberteau would admirably fill several rows of any collector’s wine rack. And, in Chinon, a host of 40-somethings have now become part of the landscape: with plenty of experience already under their belts, they are currently making fine wines. The next 20 vintages are assured from Matthieu Baudry at Bernard Baudry and Bertrand Sourdais at Domaine de Pallus to Jérôme Billard at Domaine de la Noblaie and Pierre Alliet at Philippe Alliet, among others. The very best wines are inimitable, elegant, terroir-driven and sensitively handled. They deserve to be discovered, in their own right, as superlative Loire reds, not a fresher alternative to Bordeaux Right Bank nor an affordable offering for Burgundy drinkers, which appears to be on repeat. Following four visits to the Loire in the first half of 2021, I was left wondering why Loire Cabernet wasn’t enough, why did it have to be benchmarked against other French wine regions that don’t make single varietal Cabernet Franc? It reminded me of a speech made by Ted Lemon of Littorai Wines at the Mornington Peninsula International Pinot Noir conference in 2013. He made it clear that he thought comparisons to Burgundy were unhealthy for New World producers, but that holds true for Loire Cabernet Franc makers too. “Look inward,” he said. “Do not measure all things against the Old World. And above all do not see Burgundy as a measuring stick. We must be like Odysseus, lashing ourselves to the mast of the ship in order to resist the siren song of the maidens of Burgundy.” The job of vignerons, he claimed was to “craft wines which are the most honest, crystalline expression of their place and then let others decide if they feel that your efforts are worthy.” I’m not suggesting benchmarking should be banned; it provides a useful context in which to envision a wine, but the Loire is its own place. However, the region’s self-confidence appears to be lagging behind its advances in viticulture and vinification. It may be a question of shaking off the past: based on a recent tasting of older Cabernet Francs, the oldest dating back to 1989, my takeaway was that I was glad I have decided to specialise in the Loire now rather than 10 or 20 years ago – back then the bad outweighed the good. That’s no longer the case. If fine wine merchants are only interested in holding a Loire dinner if it’s Clos Rougeard and if sommeliers attempt to show off to their peers by posting shots of this cult wine’s bottles – as if it’s the only decent red to have come out of the Loire in the past 20 years – there’s an issue. There seems to be a general lack of knowledge when it comes to what’s good and great in the Loire. I was talking to a Master of Wine recently who joked that they usually whizzed through the Loire section of the Wine and Spirit Education Trust’s diploma because it was a gaping hole in their wine education. Meanwhile, according to importers specialising in Loire wines, there’s a hangover among both consumers and professionals from the days when Cabernet Franc was invariably lean and green. The average consumer doesn’t know the name Chinon. Wine buyers might know of the appellation, but they say they think it’s too green. They have not caught up on where the region is now. Growers are finding that the only way they can give a point of reference is by making comparisons. This lack of depth even among some of the most knowledgeable and knowledge-thirsty parts of the wine trade needs addressing. It’s not helped by the regional wine trade association trying to keep all members happy and showing off too many mediocre wines at masterclasses. It’s a problem for any regional body but fielding the wine equivalent of your B or C team at the World Cup does not leave spectators impressed. And there are plenty of second string, middle-of-the-road wines in the Loire that fail to inspire, but you could say that about any wine region, even the most prestigious appellations. What’s more, there are still plenty of wines that suffer from reduction. It’s advisable to have a copper coin on hand when tasting Cabernet Franc as there are plenty of incidences of reduction in the younger wines while Brettanomyces reared its ugly head in the form of leathery, medicinal flavors and drying tannins. Cabernet Franc is a variety that can’t be forced. Vines grown on sandy gravels are generally suited to making light, fresh and fruity styles. Winemakers sometimes force these wines to be something they’re not by putting them in an oak barrel to make them seem grander and charge a higher price. Still, the lower priced wines can be better balanced and more pleasurable, which is the point of drinking wine. The Cabernet Franc styles better suited to oak ageing – preferably with a low percentage of new oak – tend to come from sites that have a limestone bedrock overlaid by clay, often mixed with sand or flint. --Rebecca Gibb MW, Loire Cabernet Franc: Who Do You Think You Are?, August 2022 To read Rebecca’s full report and learn more about the 2021 vintage in the Loire, check out the full article on Vinous now .