Grape Guide
Négrette
RedNégrette is a black-skinned variety native to the terraces of the Tarn river north of Toulouse, where it makes supple, deeply coloured wines with a violet perfume and modest acidity. Fronton is its stronghold and the appellation where it must lead every blend, while French plantings stood at about 1,200 hectares around 2010 and only token acreage exists abroad.
Key characteristics
- Belongs to the ampelographic family built around Cot; DNA shows a parent-offspring link with Prunelard, but its full parentage is unknown
- Late budbreak, early to mid ripening
- Vulnerable to coulure, millerandage and botrytis
- Thrives on boulbènes (acidic sandy clay) and gravel terraces
- Must be at least 51% of a Fronton estate's vineyard and 40% of a blend
Typical flavors
Major regions
Fronton (Haute-Garonne and Tarn-et-Garonne) · Villaudric · Lavilledieu · Gaillac · Charentes and Vendée · California (Cienega Valley, San Benito)
Also known as
Négret de Gaillac · Négret du Tarn · Négrette de Fronton · Cap de More (Tarn-et-Garonne) · Morillon · Morelet · Mourrelet (Tarn-et-Garonne) · Dégoûtant (Charente) · Folle Noire (Île de Ré · Île d'Oléron) · Ragoutant (Vendée) · Vesparo Noir (Gers) · Pinot St George (California)
Négrette is a dark-skinned grape closely tied to the Tarn valley just north of Toulouse. It produces wines of deep colour but gentle structure: tannins are moderate, acidity is low to medium, and the fruit runs to black plum and red berries, with a floral note usually called violet and sometimes liquorice, pepper or a touch of leather. On its own it can taste plump and slightly short of freshness, so growers have long added later-ripening varieties to give it frame.
Almost all of the crop goes into Fronton, where the grape is the legal backbone of red and rosé wine. Elsewhere it is a curiosity: a few old plots survive in western France, and a handful of Californian growers bottle it as a varietal. Total French plantings were about 1,200 hectares around 2010, and the trend outside the core appellation has been downward.
The name comes from the Occitan negre, meaning black, and it has been given to many unrelated vines, among them Cot, Graciano (called Morrastel in parts of the south) and Mourvaison. That overlap makes older vineyard records hard to attribute. The Négrette described here belongs to the Cot ampelographic group, a cluster of south-western varieties with shared leaf and bunch traits, and it is regarded as a local product of the Tarn basin.
A popular legend says crusading knights carried the vine home from Cyprus, where a grape called Mavro is grown. Genetic and ampelographic work does not support this, and DNA profiling (Lacombe et al. 2013) has found a parent-offspring relationship between Négrette and Prunelard, a south-western variety that is also a parent of Malbec; Négrette's full parentage is still unknown.
The vineyard around Fronton was already established in the early twelfth century, when a donation to the Order of St John in 1122 reserved a share of the grape harvest. Wines were shipped down the Tarn from Villemur and on to Bordeaux in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Phylloxera reached the area in 1878; Négrette was replanted on grafted rootstock but proved more prone to coulure and grey rot afterwards. Villaudric gained VDQS status in 1944 and Fronton in 1945, and the combined Côtes du Frontonnais AOC followed in 1975, renamed Fronton in 2005. In California the vine circulated as Pinot St George until it was identified as Négrette, and the old name was dropped in 1997.
Buds break late and fruit ripens in the early to middle part of the season. The vine is vigorous and productive, yet flowering is susceptible to coulure and millerandage, so crop size varies sharply from one year to the next. Boulbènes, the acidic sandy-clay soils found on the terraces of the Tarn, suit it best, though gravel and sand also give good results. Bunches are small and compact, and the berries (small to medium, with thin skins) leave the variety highly exposed to bunch rot caused by botrytis. Powdery mildew, leafhoppers and mites cause lasting trouble as well. Growers must keep canopies open, remove leaves with care and judge the harvest date precisely. Fronton regulations set a minimum of 4,000 vines per hectare, limit pruning to 12 buds on each vine, and cap yields at 50 hectolitres per hectare for red wine and 60 for rosé.
Négrette is made as red and rosé, both protected under the Fronton name. Reds range from juicy, early-drinking wines, sometimes made by semi-carbonic maceration, to oak-aged cuvées with firmer tannin that develop over four to seven years. Typical descriptors are violet, black plum, red berries, liquorice and pepper. Research has linked the violet note to beta-ionone, a norisoprenoid compound, and leaf removal is being studied as a way to raise its levels. Rosés are fruit-driven and low in acidity, with colour from pale lychee to raspberry. Because the grape can lack acidity and tannin, most producers blend it with Syrah, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cot, Fer or Gamay. A minority bottle it alone, and the Collectif Négrette, about ten estates, makes parcel-selected reds with at least 70 percent Négrette, yields under 35 hectolitres per hectare and at least 14 months of ageing.
Where it grows
Fronton
The appellation covers 20 communes (9 in Haute-Garonne and 11 in Tarn-et-Garonne), planted on terraces of gravel, sand and clay along the Tarn, above Tertiary molasse and without limestone. Under the 2025 revision of the rules, Négrette must make up at least 51 percent of an estate's vineyard (previously 50) and at least 40 percent of any blend. Plantings of Syrah may not exceed 40 percent, Cot and Fer are each limited to 25 percent, Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon combined to 25 percent, and Gamay to 15 percent.
Villaudric
A commune in Haute-Garonne, Villaudric held its own VDQS status from 1944 and joined Fronton in 1975. A village cooperative and independent estates both make its reds, alongside those of Fronton.
Lavilledieu
To the northwest, in Tarn-et-Garonne, this small zone once required a blend of at least 30 percent Négrette. It started as a VDQS, today ranks as an IGP, and has only modest plantings.
Gaillac and western France
Négrette (known as Négret de Gaillac) was once widely planted around Gaillac, but growers largely gave it up there during the twentieth century. A few isolated plots survive in the Charentes, on the Île de Ré (under the name Folle Noire) and in the Vendée, where it goes by Ragoutant.
California
The main plantings lie in the Cienega Valley and San Benito County. DeRose makes a varietal wine from old vines in the Cienega Valley, and Kenneth Volk produces another from San Benito fruit.