The Cab Franc Champions of Paso
Dracaena Wines, a winery and tasting room in Paso Robles, was founded by self-proclaimed science dorks and husband-wife duo, Lori and Michael. They have built their brand around their passions – Cabernet Franc and Weimaraners. Dracaena should be the first stop for anyone looking for a very dog-friendly tasting room and insight into one of the industry’s most interesting grapes: Cabernet Franc.
“We are cab franc champions. If you want to try a cab franc, come to us. If you love cab franc, come to us. If you have any questions about cab franc, come to us.”
Lori and Michael are both scientists – Michael, a food chemist, and Lori, a microbiologist. During their early days of dating, they fell in love with each other – and with wine. As they learned more about wine, Lori joked that “they could finally stand up” as they were no longer looking at just the bottom shelf.
They refined their palate through travel and decided to try their hand at making their own wines. They started at “one of those ‘make wine with us’ places” and made a barrel of wine with fruit trucked across the country from Lodi, California. Surprised by the rave reviews of friends and colleagues, they did a custom crush and eventually decided to open their own winery.
If they could make wine this good with cross-country trucked fruit they had little control over – how much better could it be when they had their own vineyard and winery?
Cab Franc Fiends
When Lori and Michael first got into wine, like most people, one of their first trips was to Napa. Winery after winery, they tasted, noting what they liked and didn’t. One particular winery didn’t have much that they liked until the person behind the counter offered them a glass of cabernet franc – a wine at the time that hadn’t heard of.
It was love at first taste and after that, they “were on a mission for cab franc but quickly realized there was just not a lot of it out there.”
They researched cab franc until they knew the grape inside and out. “If no one was going to be buying our wine, at least it would be something we liked.”
Luckily, this hasn’t been the case.
Dracaena is known in Paso for their cab franc, with other wineries even sending people to them who are curious about the varietal.
“We’re devout cab franc champions, we fight for it.”
The Origin of International Cabernet Franc Day
Lori loves cab franc so much she started an international holiday.
“We are cab franc fiends – this is really what our passion is. In 2013, we started with 75 cases of cab franc and when I released it in 2015, I realized there was a wine holiday for everything, but there wasn’t one for cab franc, so I decided to start it.
I chose December 4th because that’s the anniversary of Cardinal Richelieu’s death. He’s pretty much the father of cab franc. He’s responsible for carrying clippings from Bordeaux to the Loire, where it’s revered.
That ended up trending second on Twitter the first time. It’s now internationally recognized – there are Cab Franc Day celebrations across the globe.”
Lori's Blanc de Franc
A true innovator at heart, Lori has dreamed of the day when she could make a white cabernet franc. Making a white wine out of a red grape is not an easy task. Lori and Michael are equal partners in business and in life, so she had to wait until she received the O.K. from Michael to move foward.
“For years I’ve been asking my husband, can we make it, can we make it, can we make it? And he just was like, no, no, no. And in 2023, he was like, okay, go have fun. So we made it! And the concept of making a white wine from a red grape – people are flipping over it.”
So, what does it taste like?
According to Lori, peaches.
“We were really worried about the the green that cabernet franc could have. I mean, nobody wants a white wine that tastes like bell pepper. We were really worried. We picked as if we were making a red wine out of it. And then when we tasted it and smelled it the first time it was like walking through a peach orchard. It is so vibrantly peach – fresh off of the tree.
It’s 100 percent dry, but it’s like just a fresh peach that just was picked.”
“This white cabernet franc embodies our desire to explore the potential of cabernet franc. Born out of a passion for the grape variety, the fruit is picked at peak time for a red wine, but meticulously managed in the winery to create a distinctive white wine. It represents our commitment to pushing the boundaries of what is possible with cabernet franc.”
What can you expect when you visit?
“We are uber dog friendly – they get treated like royalty. We work with lots of charities and give 20% of our sales to them. Our tasting room is nice and cozy and we are cab franc specialists.”
Editor
Natalie is co-founder and editor of The Grapevine Magazine where she helps winemakers big and small tell their stories. She lives in Manhattan, New York City.
