“The best Cab Franc continually resonates at a pitch and frequency just out of the range of comfortable explication. It is the great conniver, is Cabernet Franc. At one moment it is as prosaic in the nose as mediocre Merlot—all cherry and wood. In the next though, it’s as mysterious as the first time you got her panties off. It smells of ash from a day-old fire on the beach or bitter chocolate ladled over with brandied raisins. In the mouth, the best
of wines make you feel as if you’re on skates being blown across ice—the blades cut deep but all you sense is the thrilling movement forward; that’s Cabernet Franc on its second-best day.
Cabernet Franc could be all corset and hair-bun if she weren’t such a sexy bitch. Just one mouthful of really good Cabernet Franc and you know she knows a hell of a lot more about all things sweaty and carnal than you ever will. She enters slowly and dances languidly at first. You turn your head away, disinterested. It’s then that she preens and polishes; her movements, then, become precise and rhythmic and self-possed. As the story unfolds in the inflection of hip and the accent of breast, you are compelled to look at her true and are… lost. Pinot Noir is all intellect. Cabernet Franc is about orgasm.”
Excerpt From: Steven Kent Mirassou. “Lineage: Life and Love and Six Generations in California Wine.”