Humpday Cabernet Franc

The Cabernet Franc Humpday Tipple is up. As fans of New York wines — both in the Finger Lakes and on Long Island, we were looking forward to this Tipple and sorry to say, we had some disappointment. Jen writes: “Why were we less than enthusiastic? Are we just barbarians, or was there really something missing?”

After initially being really underwhelmed by Cabernet Franc, over the years we’ve noticed more and more good examples of the varietal. Jen, Michael and I went to WD-50 a few years ago and enjoyed a Finger Lakes Cabernet Franc from Miles Wine Cellars, which we were familiar with, having visited there in 2006. This past March we tried several really good Cabernet Francs from Napa — Trespass Vineyards stands out as one of the best I’ve ever tasted. It’s a cool wine when it’s done well.

When Cabernet Franc is not done well, however, it is kind of gross. One of the earliest lessons I learned about viticulture came in 2005 when we first visited Long Island and tried many examples of Cabernet Franc. Place after place we kept noticing this bell pepper taste (and sometimes a rubbery taste). I innocently kept saying, “oh, it tastes like bell pepper!” and it wasn’t until later that we learned that the taste of bell pepper comes out when grapes are underripe — usually the sign of a rainy growing season. We left Long Island thinking we didn’t like Cabernet Franc, then we tasted the good ones in the Finger Lakes and then Napa — since then it’s been a grape we’ve sought out.

I was definitely looking forward to trying the French Cabernet Francs and I have to say that I was really disappointed in the “thinness” (as Jen writes) of the Chinon. Elsewhere, the Schneider Cabernet Franc from Long Island just reeked of rubber. The one fantastic wine we tried was the Anjou Pur Breton Cousin-Leduc 2006 from the Loire Valley in France — the normally quiet clerk at Astor got really excited when I asked where to find this bottle and it was as advertised — really wonderful stuff (the “naturalness” of the wine is great, too).

Now I should add, to be fair, that some of these wines tasted a lot better the next day. Sometimes red wine leftovers don’t taste real great the next day, but some of the wines that didn’t taste real great on Humpday actually tasted OK on Thursday and Friday. Not sure why this would be, but I’m passing it along.

Until next time . . .