Grape Guide
Colombard
WhiteColombard is a vigorous, high-yielding white grape from the Charente, a natural cross of Chenin Blanc and Gouais Blanc, that gives crisp, lightly aromatic wines when picked early and fermented cool. Today it is valued chiefly for fresh Gascon whites and for blending in California, South Africa and Australia, and it still supplies a neutral base for some brandies.
Key characteristics
- Natural cross of Chenin Blanc and Gouais Blanc, sharing both parents with the Cognac grape Balzac Blanc and the Armagnac grape Meslier Saint-Francois
- Vigorous and very fertile; yields stay high even in hot, irrigated vineyards
- Moderate acidity that early picking and cool fermentation are needed to protect
- Mid-season ripening on hard wood that makes pruning laborious
- Prone to powdery mildew and to botrytis bunch rot in damp conditions
Typical flavors
Major regions
Côtes de Gascogne IGP (Gascony) · Charente and Cognac country · Armagnac (Gers, Landes) · California Central Valley · Western Cape (Breede River, Olifants River) · Riverland, Riverina and Murray Darling (Australia)
Also known as
Colombar (Gironde · South Africa) · Colombier (Gironde) · French Colombard (California) · Queue Tendre (Charente) · Tourterelle
Colombard is a white grape of the western and south-western quadrants of France that has found a second career in warm New World regions. Its appeal is practical: it is fertile and vigorous, it ripens in mid-season, and with early picking and cool stainless-steel fermentation it yields clean, moderately acidic wines of citrus, orchard fruit and light floral aroma. It rarely carries much body or complexity, so it is usually drunk young.
The variety has had three roles. In the Charente and Gascony it was a source of base wine for distillation. In California's Central Valley, South Africa and inland Australia it became a high-volume blending grape, often partnered by Chenin Blanc or Chardonnay. Since the 1980s, Gascon cooperatives have repositioned it as a dry, unoaked varietal white, and a few growers in South Africa and California now bottle old-vine examples with more texture and length.
Colombard comes from the Charente in west-central France. Its historic heartland is the Borderies, the smallest of the Cognac crus, and the earliest written record dates from the first decades of the eighteenth century in La Rochelle, where the name appeared as Collombar or Coulombard. The name most likely comes from the French word for dove (colombe), echoed in synonyms such as Colombier (dovecote) and Tourterelle (turtledove); the allusion is thought to be to the pale berry colour, not to any attraction for birds. In the nineteenth century ampelographers sometimes confused it with Semillon.
DNA profiling shows Colombard to be a natural cross of Chenin Blanc and Gouais Blanc. The same two parents produced Balzac Blanc, an almost vanished Cognac grape, and Meslier Saint-Francois, still found in Armagnac, so the three are full siblings. Gouais Blanc, a medieval workhorse of northern and eastern France, is also a parent of Chardonnay, Riesling and Gamay Noir, which makes Colombard a relative of many better-known varieties.
The grape reached California in the 1850s as West's White Prolific, named for George West of San Joaquin County. In France, plantings more than halved between 1968 (about 11,900 ha) and 1979 (about 5,800 ha) as demand for distillation wine fell, but they have since recovered, helped by the success of Gascon varietal whites. Cooperative producers in Gascony were inspired in part by the popularity of fresh Californian Colombard in the United States.
Colombard is vigorous and very fertile, and in warm irrigated regions it crops at 140 to 220 hl/ha while the high yields help it keep fresh acidity, which explains its popularity for bulk wine. The wood is hard, so pruning, whether short or long, is demanding. It ripens in mid-season. Powdery mildew and botrytis bunch rot are its main hazards in damp climates, which is why the dry heat of the California Central Valley and the irrigated Australian inland suits it better than the Atlantic coast. Growers aiming at quality pick early, before the acidity softens. Large clonal collections exist in France: more than 180 clones were assembled in the Gers in 1995 and 2002, and a further collection of about 200 was planted in the Charente in 2010.
The dominant style is a dry, unoaked, stainless-steel white with grapefruit, lemon, green apple and peach, sometimes with a floral or passion-fruit lift. Côtes de Gascogne examples may be pure Colombard or blended with Ugni Blanc, Gros Manseng or Sauvignon Blanc, the last giving added aromatic definition. In California, South Africa and Australia, off-dry blends built on Chenin Blanc or Chardonnay as partners make up the bulk of the volume, often sold in bag-in-box or at entry-level prices. Neutral, high-yielding Colombard has long been distilled: in South Africa a large share still goes to brandy, and it is among the grapes permitted for Armagnac and Cognac, although Ugni Blanc supplies nearly all of the Cognac base. In the Charente it is also used in Pineau des Charentes. Old-vine bottlings from South Africa and California show that it can carry more weight and a longer citrus-peel finish when yields are low.
Where it grows
Gascony (Côtes de Gascogne IGP)
The leading variety of the zone, at around 5,400 ha, or about a quarter of the vineyard, as of 2005. The wines are dry, fresh and usually inexpensive, made mainly by cooperatives.
Charente and Cognac
The historic home of the grape. It is allowed in the Cognac blend but is a minor component, since Ugni Blanc covers more than 98 percent of the Cognac vineyard; the Charente also uses it in Pineau des Charentes.
California
Planted since the 1850s, mostly in the Central Valley. Acreage peaked above 90,000 acres in the late 1980s and had fallen to around 26,000 acres by 2010. It remains one of the larger varieties by crush weight, going into white blends and brandy.
South Africa
Known as Colombar, with 9,114 ha at the end of 2023 (about 10 percent of the national vineyard), down from 11,877 ha in 2008. Sauvignon Blanc overtook it as the second most planted variety in 2022. The Breede River and Olifants River regions are major sources, and much of the crop is distilled for brandy.
Australia
About 2,700 ha were planted in 2008, mostly in the irrigated inland districts around the Riverland, the Riverina and the Murray Darling. In the Riverland it ranked fourth in 2024, at roughly 6 percent of the total.