Lore Cabernet Franc
Cabernet Franc is the grape people fall for late and then never leave. It sits lighter than Cabernet Sauvignon, carries more perfume, and has a leafy, savoury streak running through it that comes from the same family of aromatic compounds you meet in green pepper. Some drinkers chase that note. Others were put off it once and never came back. If you're in the first camp, this is your everyday bottle.
Expect red fruit rather than black — red currant, raspberry, sour cherry — with a graphite or pencil-shaving edge behind it and a herbal lift over the top. Structurally it runs to fresh acidity and moderate tannin rather than weight and grip, which is precisely why it works so well with food and so poorly as a big warming armchair red.
The trick with Cabernet Franc is temperature. Served too warm it turns stewed and the green note gets loud. Twenty minutes in the fridge before you pour and the whole thing snaps into focus — brighter fruit, better acidity, the herbal side reading as freshness instead of a fault.
Under twenty pounds this is a proper weeknight red for anyone bored of soft, jammy, oak-heavy wine. Drink it over the next couple of years.
How to Serve
Serve it cool, 14–16°C — twenty minutes in the fridge if the room is warm. A medium wine glass rather than a large bowl. No decanting; it doesn't need air so much as it needs a chill.
Where to Drink It
Noble Rot, where Loire Cabernet Franc has long been a house obsession. Planque near Haggerston for the low-intervention crowd. Brat in Shoreditch, where the grill work suits a red like this.
Food Pairings
Charcuterie and a hunk of bread is the honest answer. Otherwise roast pork, lentils, or a plate of grilled peppers and goat's cheese where the herbal side becomes the whole point.
