Cab Franc is Defining the World-Class Contours of Livermore Valley

[W]hen the right grape meets the right place and those two are aligned with that wine community’s need to differentiate itself from every other place then the right mission is the result.

Cab Franc is defining the world-class contours of the Livermore Valley. If you want a wine that checks the Deliciousness, Gorgeousness, Accessibility, and Food Compatibility boxes, no grapes does it with the aplomb of Cab Franc.

And no other grape is as perfectly suited to the terroir-driven characteristics of Livermore as Cab Franc is either. Warm days, very cool, wind-driven nights (especially in the eastern foothills) contribute to a very long growing season that typically lasts into November.

Wind shuts vines down, decreasing the daily number of photosynthetic hours that plants have to create sugar. So we have to add days at the end of the season to get physiologically ripe fruit; this fruit has only sipped at the sugar-producing teat, as it were, instead of gulping it down—as happens in regions north and south of us.