Two vintages of our Estate Cabernet Franc have gone out to critics so far. The 2022 was named Best in Show at the 2025 Decanter World Wine Awards, one of the largest wine competitions in the world, and scored 97 points, one of only two Cabernet Franc-led wines to reach that year’s entire Top 50 Best in Show. Wine Enthusiast scored the same 2022 at 93. The 2023, our current release, has already scored 95 from Vinous. Cabernet Franc is usually blended in a few percentage points at a time rather than bottled and labeled on its own, which is part of why three scores like these are worth walking through.
Why Cabernet Franc Is Rarely Bottled Alone
Cabernet Franc is the parent of Cabernet Sauvignon. DNA work in the 1990s traced Cabernet Sauvignon back to a cross between Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc. In Bordeaux and in Napa alike, though, it has spent most of its history as the supporting grape rather than the one on the label: a small percentage blended in for aromatic lift and softer tannin, rarely trusted to stand on its own. Grown somewhere too warm, or picked without real care, it can turn thin and green, and that is the exact risk Decanter’s own judges named in their note on ours, calling out the variety’s tendency toward dryness in warmer climates. Solving for that risk before fermentation, in the vineyard itself, is what makes a varietal bottling possible at all.
What Stags Leap District Does For It
Stags Leap District is the smallest AVA in Napa Valley, three miles long and a mile wide, sitting between the Vaca Mountains and the Napa River. Cool air drawn in from San Pablo Bay moves through a natural corridor formed by the district’s knolls and the Stags Leap Palisades, so warm days push the fruit toward ripeness while cool nights hold onto acid and freshness. It is the same cooling that has made the district’s Cabernet Sauvignon age-worthy rather than merely big, and for Cabernet Franc it does something just as specific: it gives the fruit real phenolic ripeness without losing the acid that keeps the wine bright instead of dry and green in the glass.
What the Critics are Saying
Antonio Galloni at Vinous scored the 2023 at 95 points, calling it “aromatic and punchy,” with “crushed rose petal, cinnamon, dried leaves and cedar” folded into a core of dark red and purplish fruit, and named it “impeccably done.” Elaine Chukan Brown at Wine Enthusiast scored the 2022 at 93, describing “a lift of lavender and flowering herbs leading into a palate of dark fruits, graphite, and a gunmetal finish,” with tannins she called “lightly tactile” and “energized for further sipping.” Decanter’s panel, awarding the same 2022 vintage Best in Show at 97 points, described “a carnival of scent in which spice, flowers and damsons mingle,” praised its “splendid depth and width,” and closed with a line of their own: “Rarely does a wine from Stags Leap leap so gracefully.”
The Blend Behind the Label
An estate wine labeled Cabernet Franc is rarely one grape alone, and ours isn’t either. The 2022 is 84 percent Cabernet Franc, 12 percent Cabernet Sauvignon, and 2 percent Merlot, at 15 percent alcohol. Every lot here is fermented and evaluated on its own before any blending decision gets made, the same as it is for Yettalil, so the Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot in this wine earned their place in the final blend on their own merits.
The 2023 adds a fourth grape to that blend: 2 percent Carménère. Carménère was once a common part of Bordeaux's own field blends, until phylloxera moved through French vineyards in the 19th century and all but erased it there. It survived because cuttings had already reached Chile, where growers spent the better part of a century farming it under the belief that it was Merlot, until ampelographers identified the two apart in the 1990s. Chile is still where nearly all of the world's Carménère grows today, and it's also where Clos du Val sourced the rootstock for our own planting, an introduction that traces back to founding winemaker Bernard Portet's wife, who is Chilean. A grape that Bordeaux lost and Chile kept now has a place, in a small way, in a Stags Leap District wine descended from Bordeaux tradition in the first place.
Frequently Asked Questions
What makes Cabernet Franc different from Cabernet Sauvignon? Cabernet Franc is Cabernet Sauvignon’s parent grape, generally lighter in tannin and higher-toned in aromatics, with a tendency toward floral and herbal notes rather than the denser, darker fruit Cabernet Sauvignon typically carries. It ripens earlier and can turn green or thin if grown somewhere too warm, which is why it is more often used as a blending component than bottled alone.
Why do so few Napa wineries bottle Cabernet Franc on its own? Because it is a harder grape to get right without support. Decanter’s judges called out the variety’s own tendency toward dryness in warmer climates as the risk any producer bottling it alone has to solve. Most choose to fold a small percentage into a Cabernet Sauvignon or Bordeaux-style blend instead, where it can contribute lift without having to carry the whole wine.
What have critics said about Clos du Val’s Cabernet Franc? The 2022 vintage won Best in Show and a 97-point score at the 2025 Decanter World Wine Awards, and separately scored 93 points from Wine Enthusiast. The 2023, our current release, scored 95 points from Vinous.
Is Cabernet Franc always blended with other grapes? Not always, but it usually is. Our own Estate Cabernet Franc is 84 percent Cabernet Franc, with the remaining 12 percent Cabernet Sauvignon and 2 percent Merlot rounding it out. Even wines labeled by the variety alone are rarely a single grape from crush to bottle.
Where can I buy it? The current release is available directly through our shop, and it can also be tasted at Hirondelle House on the Silverado Trail.