Quick, what’s the first thing that comes to mind when I say, "Napa Valley?" Did you say, "Cabernet Sauvignon?" Most people would, and rightly so. Napa Valley is synonymous with Cabernet Sauvignon to wine drinkers around the globe. Yet the world’s best-known grape variety accounts for only about a third of the valley’s acreage. That leaves plenty of room for more diverse expressions of terrain and terroir by a number of lesser-known grapes.

The other Cabernet, for example. In recent vintages, Cabernet Franc has quietly claimed a respectable niche in the Napa Valley varietal roster. A decade ago, there were virtually no stand-alone bottlings, but now more than two dozen producers bottle a Cabernet Franc or a Franc-heavy blend.

That stealthy rise in popularity is no accident. There’s something about Cabernet Franc that appeals to a wine lover on a basic level. It’s not just the zest and pure fruit of the quaffable Chinon (Loire Valley) renditions. Down in Bordeaux, St. Emilion’s Chateau Cheval Blanc is mostly Cabernet Franc (with the balance Merlot), and it’s typically a big, stern, long-aging wine despite its deceptively early drinkability. But it has as many ardent partisans as any of the Cabernet Sauvignon-dominated premier crus Medocs.

True, Cabernet Franc sometimes can be aggressively herbaceous — a characteristic the French call sauvage, or wild. Even the ripest Franc has a green streak in its soul, an earthy herbaceousness not unlike the scent of a forest in the morning.

Yet the best Cabernet Francs are wonderfully fragrant, lively wines that invite glass after glass at a modest alcohol level that keeps the conversation witty. Their lively acidity and lightly raspy texture complement simple, hearty food, which makes them ubiquitous in French bistros. I like Cabernet Franc best in summer — when I’m standing under a sky as red as the mesquite coals in the Weber, contemplating lamb. That’s when a glass of Chinon can be a revelation of earthly pleasure, a true sublimation of humble dedication to viticulture. (Last summer, we were drinking Joguet’s Cuvée Terroir, a young-vine cuvée intended for just such a situation.)

REFLECTIONS OF HOME
Napa Valley Cabernet Francs show an astonishing range of expressions that reflect the valley’s diverse soils and climates: high-toned succulence in the cool Carneros and southern valley districts, for example, with more firmly structured power in the northern valley, and dense richness in the mountains.

This auspicious debut has been a long time coming. In fact, Cabernet Franc is Cabernet Sauvignon’s dad. Mom is Sauvignon Blanc. Like the Titans who gave birth to Jupiter in Greek mythology, these two parents of the wine world’s shining star hail from a darker, more mysterious age.

At some point in the distant past, each was selected and cultivated for the desirability of its wine. Over time, both found their places in wine geography — and not far apart.

Cabernet Franc settled in Bordeaux, primarily on the right back of the Gironde around St. Emilion, and in the middle Loire Valley around Chinon. Sauvignon Blanc found a home on the gravelly flatlands of Bordeaux’s left bank, and in the upper Loire around Sancerre and Pouilly-sur-Loire.

Wines from both grapes have strong personalities that tend to polarize wine drinkers. Their bright acidity and prominent herbaceous note — that sauvage character — appeal to some and alienate others. For that reason, they take a backseat to Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay, both of which defy Abraham Lincoln’s dictum that you can’t please all the people all the time.

Ironically, that distinctive herbaceous accent also may be the key to Cabernet Franc’s new popularity. The new model for California Cabernet Sauvignon is generic fruitiness — wines that are full-bodied with rich cherry-berry-oak flavor. Such wines may be delicious, but they lack the defined matrix of woodsy aromas and flavors that historically have signaled the great Cabernet Sauvignon-based Bordeaux. That sensory pedigree is quite satisfyingly apparent in Cabernet Franc.

BLENDED BEGINNINGS
Visiting Napa Valley wineries in the 1980s, one sometimes encountered barrel samples of Cabernet Franc. Invariably, they were for blending, part of the valley’s ineluctable rush to embrace all things Bordelais. I have clear memories of some of those tastes, shining impressions of ruby-red wines that were immediately appealing for their perfume and bright fruit. Those wines provided refreshing breaks from the dense, extracted Cabernet Sauvignons typical of the time — and they also provided glimpses of the future.

As Napa Valley viticulture improved dramatically after the late ’80s, so did the quality of those Cabernet Franc blending components. Overtly vegetal Francs were fewer and farther between as growers learned to balance their vines in specific sites. Soon it was clear that beautiful things happen on the palate when the herbaceousness is tempered by ripe red-fruit character and mature tannins.

Inevitably, varietal Franc bottlings began to appear. The first wave was a curiosity, run up the flagpole to see who saluted. A generally favorable response encouraged more producers to flirt with Franc. When phylloxera presented the golden opportunity to second-guess the varietal mix in the valley’s vineyards a decade ago, Cabernet Franc’s roothold expanded, from negligible acreage in the early 1980s to more than 1,000 acres today.

Blending with Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot remains Franc’s primary role in the valley, as in Bordeaux. Yet now there are more than a dozen firmly established Napa Valley Cabernet Franc bottlings, and some of the appellation’s most noteworthy red wines, such as Viader and Dalla Valle Maya, include substantial Franc components. The inexhaustible demand for soft, fruity Merlot will no doubt keep that varietal firmly in second place after Cabernet Sauvignon. (Merlot now accounts for 17 percent of the appellation’s 40,000 vineyard acres, Cabernet Sauvignon one-third). But it’s clear that Cabernet Franc holds great interest for aficionados and connoisseurs as a brighter, more elegant expression of the Napa Valley terroir than the ever more extracted and black-fruit-dominated Cabernet Sauvignons. Its image also is getting a boost from the increasing popularity of French regional wines, among which Cabernet Francs from the lower Loire Valley are prominent. All in all, it would appear that "the other Cabernet" has secured a firm position on Napa Valley’s increasingly narrowing varietal roster.

It’s axiomatic in the wine world that too much finesse makes a light, insipid wine, while too much concentration makes a rustic wine. Each grape variety has its happy medium, where power and finesse are balanced and the true nature of both grape and terroir are radiant on the palate. Cabernet Franc shows best as an elegant wine, not a heavily extracted purple monster. And that makes it an ideal showcase for terroir.

TO EACH HIS OWN
Cabernet Franc is a viticultural chimera: Every producer who looks at it sees something different. In fact, there are as many different styles of Napa Valley Cabernet Franc as there are winemakers willing to grapple with it. This is a timely moment to taste through the current range of Francs, because the quality level is consistently high while the individual expressions of location and winemaking style are still all over the board.

Lang & Reed offers the least typical and, to me, most interesting Napa Valley Cabernet Francs. It reminds me of Joguet’s "Chene Vert" bottling, about as big as Chinon reds get, but still much juicier and lip-smackin’ good than the sterner, brooding Merlot-Franc wines of St. Emilion and its satellite appellations.

Lang & Reed was founded in 1996 by Napa Valley marketing consultant John Skupny and his wife, Tracey. They produce two 100 percent Cabernet Franc bottlings under the Lang & Reed label (named after their sons), primarily from well-drained gravelly soils in a warm location near St. Helena. One is slightly more substantial than the other (due mostly to barrel aging), but both are firmly in that lively, high-toned camp.

The original concept, Skupny tells me, "was that since nobody was toying with this, we could carve out our own niche, and if somebody said name the top five Cabernet Francs from California, we’d be on the list." I would nominate both Lang & Reed bottlings for the top of the list, not just for their distinctive style and quality, but also for the attitude behind them.

Niebaum-Coppola Cabernet Franc is made from organically grown descendants of the valley’s original Cabernet Franc vines. It consistently shows a combination of deep, radiant fruit flavor and pointed juiciness that reflects the well-drained alluvial soils and superbly balanced climate of Rutherford.

Chappellet Winery & Vineyard’s 34-year-old Franc vines also yield a remarkably concentrated, vibrant wine — but one that consistently shows off the rocky terrain of Pritchard Hill, high above the valley’s east side, in its tannic richness and breadth on the palate.

Robert Sinskey produces gorgeous Cabernet Francs with the piercing perfume and intense fruit typical of the cool Carneros district. Much of Carneros is too chilly to ripen red Bordeaux grapes, but these vines grow on a warm patch of red volcanic soil in a rare location sheltered from the marine breezes. Not far away, Truchard Vineyards shows the same distinctive regional qualities with the plump fruit and lithe suppleness of its estate Franc.

Just a grape’s throw north, in the Yountville area, Trefethen Vineyards combines the bracing acidity of Carneros with a warmer, richer character that hints at the effects of up-valley heat.

And how different from all of those are the massively concentrated Dalla Valle Maya (50 percent Franc/50 percent Sauvignon) and feline-sleek Viader (40 percent Franc/60 percent Sauvignon), both from very warm locations on the valley’s eastern slopes. These producers have turned the traditional St. Emilion blend of Cabernet Franc and Merlot on its head by substituting Cabernet Sauvignon for Merlot — uniting the two Cabernets, father and son, in uniquely Californian blends.

Rod Smith loves Cabernet Franc, but what he’s really looking for is the other Napa Valley. Smith, wine columnist for the Los Angeles Times, is a recipient of the James Beard Foundation Journalism Award for magazine writing about spirits, wine, and beer.