Cabernet Franc

Grape variety Red

Grilled or raw red meat (tartare, carpaccio)

Risotto, pasta with tomato sauce

Cream desserts

Cabernet Franc red wines have a ruby red colour. On the palate they show moderate acidity and velvety tannins. This grape variety gives pleasant and well-rounded wines. Cabernet Franc is famous for its typical raspberry aroma. It also often carries aromas of blackcurrant leaves, strawberries, licorice and violets to its wines.

About the grape variety

Although it is one of the main grape varieties of the great wines of Bordeaux (F), Cabernet Franc finds its ancestral origins in the Spanish Basque Country, from where it spread to Gironde (F), then to the Loire (F) where it became one of the most widely cultivated reds. DNA tests show that it is the progenitor of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Carmenère. In Switzerland, this grape variety of mid-range maturity, not very susceptible to fungal diseases, is mostly grown in French-speaking Switzerland and Ticino.

Distribution of grape varieties

Cabernet Franc is grown in several wine regions

Valais
36%

Vaud
20%

Geneva
20%

Ticino
18%

Three Lakes
2%

German-speaking Switzerland
2%