Grape Guides29 October 20264 min read
Learning Cabernet Franc from one bottle of Reyneke Cornerstone
By South African Wines
Cabernet Franc is one of the harder reds to name blind. Reyneke's Cornerstone, 86 per cent Franc from a cool ridge above False Bay, makes a clear example to learn from.
Reyneke Cornerstone Red is 86 per cent Cabernet Franc and 14 per cent Cabernet Sauvignon, which makes it a useful bottle for learning what Cabernet Franc tastes like when it leads. The small share of Cabernet Sauvignon gives you a reference point inside the same glass, so you can work out which traits belong to which grape. Reyneke Cornerstone Red comes from the Polkadraai Hills, a cool, sea-facing ridge, and for this variety the site matters more than usual.
By the end you should be able to pick Cabernet Franc out of a line-up of reds without seeing the label, using this wine as the example for each clue.
What Cabernet Franc brings to the glass
Of the two Cabernets, Franc has the lighter frame. It ripens earlier, its skins tend to be thinner, and its wines usually carry more scent and fresher acidity for their weight. Cabernet Franc in South Africa is most often a blending partner, so a bottle where it makes up the large majority gives you a clearer look at the grape.
In the Cornerstone, the fruit is ripe cassis and dark berry with plenty of concentration. The frame around that fruit is what marks it out as Franc, with a firm, fresh line of acidity and tannins that keep their edges all the way through the finish. Tannin is the drying, gripping sensation that comes from grape skins and oak, and with Cabernet Franc it usually feels fine-grained and tightly drawn.
The other half of the grape's signature is aroma. Grown somewhere too cool or picked too early, Cabernet Franc can smell green, like crushed leaves or green pepper. Ripened carefully on a ventilated slope, it keeps its perfume and loses the raw greenness, and Reyneke's cellar choices are built around protecting that perfume.
Why a cool ridge suits this grape
Cabernet Franc's freshness depends on where it grows. In a hot vineyard it can turn soft and jammy and lose the tension that makes it recognisable. The Polkadraai Hills give Reyneke elevated, sea-facing slopes with granite-flecked soils, and breezes off False Bay keep the vines cool and well ventilated.
Those breezes slow ripening, so the grapes hold on to their natural acidity while the fruit builds depth, which is where the Cornerstone's firm acid spine and finely drawn tannins come from. Reyneke farms the ridge organically and biodynamically, cultivating the soil without sprays so the vines root deep into the site.
