Alicante Bouschet Grape Guide

Alicante Bouschet is one of the darkest-coloured grapes cultivated commercially. Its pulp is red as well as its skin, so even a brief, gentle extraction yields opaque, purple-black juice, and growers have long valued it for deepening the colour of paler varieties. Tannins are firm and often rustic, and in good sites acidity ranges from moderate to fresh. The fruit character leans toward blackcurrant, plum and blueberry, with violet and peppery notes.

Throughout most of its history it was regarded as a workhorse. Careful vineyard management in hot, dry regions has since shown that low yields turn it into a serious red. The finest Portuguese and Spanish bottlings combine dense colour with dark, concentrated fruit and enough structure to age for ten years or more. In other places it remains chiefly a blending component, or a bulk grape prized for colour rather than finesse. Today it is at home mainly in the inland south of Portugal and the warm interior of Spain.

Henri Bouschet bred Alicante Bouschet near Mauguio in the Hérault, on the Calmette estate, by crossing Grenache with Petit Bouschet. Petit Bouschet came from his father, Louis Bouschet, who had raised it from Aramon and the old red-fleshed Teinturier du Cher. Henri produced a family of siblings between the mid 1850s and mid 1860s; they resembled one another but made wines of uneven quality, and by 1900 only the most productive one remained in general cultivation. The 1855 original and a 1865 sibling (Alicante Bouschet no. 2) cannot be told apart in the vineyard, so modern plantings are probably a mixture of the two, something only DNA profiling would separate.

After phylloxera struck in the 1870s and 1880s, the variety spread rapidly across southern France, since it cropped heavily and lent deep colour to the thin wines of the Midi. Spanish DNA work published in 2003 showed that the grape grown in Spain as Garnacha Tintorera is the same variety. Despite the name, it is therefore not a simple colour mutation of Garnacha, and Grenache is only one of its parents.

It had arrived in Portugal's Alentejo by the early twentieth century at the latest; the Reynolds family's Herdade do Mouchão is the estate most linked with its rise there, though accounts differ on exactly when the first vines were planted. In the United States during Prohibition, its thick skins let it survive rail shipment to home winemakers in the east, and California planted it on a huge scale before the market collapsed after repeal.

The variety buds early and so is regularly exposed to spring frost, and it ripens early to mid season. Vigour is moderate to high, and short pruning is the usual response. Yields are good and consistent in warm, dry climates, typically in the range of 10 to 15 tonnes per hectare under standard management, though far lower for quality wines. The vine is sensitive to strong wind. Thick skins suit machine harvest and resist some rot, yet early ripening makes bird damage a practical concern. It resists powdery mildew but is prone to downy mildew, grey mould, phomopsis, flavescence dorée, bacterial diseases and grapevine trunk diseases. Two mutations are known, one with colourless flesh and one with hairy leaves. Medium to low fertility soils and a dry, very warm climate give the best balance of colour and fruit.

The traditional role is that of a colouring grape: a small addition darkens blends based on Tempranillo, Trincadeira, Aragonez or Grenache, and it was long used this way in the Languedoc. Varietal wines are now made in three broad styles. In Portugal's Alentejo, the leading versions are dark, plush and tannic, with black fruit, spice and a savoury edge, and the most ambitious wines are aged in cask for several years. Spanish Garnacha Tintorera ranges from simple, deeply coloured young reds to structured wines from old vines in Almansa and Galicia, with alcohol often moderate in cooler or higher sites. Rosé is rarely made because even brief skin contact stains the juice. Fortified and sweet versions exist in a few places, and the deep colour also suits Port-style experiments. In all of them the wines are dense, with high polyphenol content that helps ageing.

Where it grows

Alentejo, Portugal

The variety's most celebrated home. Herdade do Mouchão's Tinto is built on roughly 85% Alicante Bouschet with 15% Trincadeira, trodden by foot in stone lagares and matured for a long spell in cask. Esporão, Herdade do Rocim, Terras de Alter and Herdade dos Grous also bottle it, and by 2010 national plantings had passed 2,000 hectares, with later estimates higher.

Castilla-La Mancha and Almansa, Spain

Spain held about 22,000 hectares of Garnacha Tintorera in the late 2000s, and more than half of that lay in Castilla-La Mancha. Almansa, in the south east of Albacete province, is the main area for quality wines, and producers such as Envínate bottle examples led by Garnacha Tintorera.

Galicia, Spain

About 6,000 hectares are planted, concentrated in the inland Ourense area, which ranks it among Galicia's major red varieties by area. A label that says simply Garnacha can mean Tintorera rather than Grenache, which makes comparisons awkward.

Southern France

Plantings dropped from 15,769 hectares in 1988 to 5,680 hectares in 2008, and the Hérault has the largest share. Although it is a vinifera variety admitted to quality wine production, blending remains its chief use; a notable varietal example is Allé Canto from Domaine La Sorga.

California

Reported plantings during Prohibition ran to tens of thousands of acres, and the grapes were shipped east for home winemaking. Under 1,500 acres survive now, found largely in Fresno, San Joaquin and Tulare counties in the Central Valley, where summers are hot, along with a few heritage plantings in Lodi.

South America

Chile had 438 hectares and Argentina 215 hectares in 2008, and in both countries it mostly serves to add colour to blends.

Alicante Bouschet

Key characteristics

Typical flavors

Major regions

Also known as

Where it grows