Grenache

Grenache is among the most planted red grapes in the world and, for most of its history, among the least respected — a consequence of being grown in enormous quantity for bulk wine across southern France and Spain.

It is a heat-loving, drought-resistant, late-ripening variety that accumulates sugar readily, which means high alcohol: fifteen per cent is unremarkable. Skins are thin, so colour and tannin are modest, and acidity is low. The fruit is red rather than black — raspberry, strawberry, red plum — with white pepper, dried herbs, orange peel and a distinctly warm, sweet-spiced character. With age it develops leather, tar and dried fruit.

In the southern Rhône it is the dominant grape of Châteauneuf-du-Pape and Gigondas, usually blended with Syrah and Mourvèdre. In Spain, as Garnacha, it is central to Priorat, where century-old bush vines on steep llicorella slate slopes give wines of remarkable concentration, and to Rioja, where it softens Tempranillo. In Sardinia it is Cannonau, brought by the Aragonese, and makes the island's signature red.

It is also one of the world's great rosé grapes, dominant in Provence and Tavel.

Its revival as a serious variety has come from old bush vines and low yields. Grenache cropped generously gives sweet, alcoholic, characterless wine; the same grape from gnarled sixty-year-old vines on poor soil gives something perfumed and complex.

A white mutation, Garnacha Blanca, and a grey one, Garnacha Gris, both exist.

Its low colour and low tannin make it unusually vulnerable to oxidation, which is why old Grenache browns early and why the grape is so often blended with darker, more tannic partners. It is also why Grenache rosé works so well — the pale juice and soft structure are exactly what the style wants.

The old-vine question is central. Grenache is genetically inclined to vigour, and a young vine on fertile ground will produce enormous quantities of dilute, alcoholic wine. A sixty-year-old bush vine on slate or galets naturally self-regulates to a tiny crop, and the difference in concentration is dramatic. Almost every great Grenache in the world comes from vines older than the person drinking it.

It also has an unusual capacity to taste sweet while being technically dry, a consequence of high alcohol and ripe red fruit. Anyone who finds it cloying should look to Priorat or to cooler, higher sites in the Rhône, where the same grape is markedly more savoury.