The birthplace of Grenache is debated. Most believe it originated in Aragon, Spain because the Royal family of Aragon brought it with them wherever they went. La Rioja is north of there, where Grenache has made its permanent homestead. However, there’s a man that lived in Southern France in 1866 named Henri Bouschet. He cross-bred his Petite Bouschet with Grenache and named the baby, Alicante Bouschet, a nod to what he thought were the origins of Grenache. (I’ll spend a week on Alicante Bouschet another time). Aragon and La Rioja have hot, dry, continental climate. Whereas Alicante sits below Valencia and is much more Southernly and has warm Mediterranean climate with coastal influence. Aragon and La Rioja enjoy calcareous and clay soils that is very alkaline and looks yellow ochre in color. Whereas Alicante enjoys fertile sandy silt with limestone. La Rioja sits between 1000-2000’ in elevation, whereas, Alicante sits just above sea level. The Iberian Mountain Range and the Ebro River provide diurnal differences in temperature with the median daytime temperature at 67 degrees F. In Alicante, however, the temperature is protected from the coastal influence with average temperatures at 77 degrees. The two locations could not be more different. Grenache travelled even further North to Ribera del Duero and Navarre with more extremes and wetter climate.
Let’s dive into history. The kings and queens of France and England would bring Bordeaux (at the time it was called the wine from the land between the waters of Aquataine) with them wherever they would go. From meetings with the Pope, to Peace Treaties, trade negotiations and on the Crusades. Throughout the world, people planted the cuttings from the land between the waters of Aquataine.
But it wasn’t France nor England who ruled the world. It was Spain and the Royal Family of Aragon that reigned from about 1000 years ago until 1713, the end of the war of the Spanish Succession. They too would bring their wines and cuttings wherever they went. At their height they controlled the Balearic Islands, Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia, Malta, Southern Italy and parts of Greece. It’s unclear if they brought Tempranillo cuttings with their Rioja wines as they travelled. It seems that they likely did as the Tempranillo was also called Aragonez of the Royal Family. The wines of Rioja are typically Grenache, Tempranillo, with some Monstrell (aka Mourvedreh) and Mazuelo. However, Tempranillo cuttings didn’t take in the Mediterranean, but the Grenache did. So much so that in Sardinia, the people say Grenache had its origins there and they call it Cannonau. Recently, researchers have found fossilized Cannonau seeds in Sardinia that predates seeds in La Rioja. Further, Grenache wasn’t widely planted in Central Spain until after phylloxera. So it makes more sense, that the Grenache grapes were growing in Alicante and the grapes travelled from there on the ships of the Royal Family of Aragon’s Spanish Armada throughout the Mediterranean. The largest sea ports in the world, at the time of the Royal Family of Aragon, were in Valencia, near Alicante and further south in Andalucia. Thus, Henri Bouschet must have had the origins of Grenache right.
The noble grapes of France all have leaves that look like a hand with definite negative and positive space on the leaves. The study of the DNA of the grapes began with looking for similarities in ampelography (the study of leaves). But the Grenache looks far more primitive. It looks like a webbed three fingered dinosaur hand.
Cabernet Franc Grenache
The trouble with collecting DNA evidence and finding the origins of plants is that most organic material isn’t left to find hundreds of years later. These deciduous plants shed their leaves that break down in the soil and becomes its own nitrates. Vineyard owners typically cut down and regraft new plants every 75 years, as the plants produce less fruit as they age. So there’s not much evidence to find to prove theories and where and when a plant originated. There was another port that was used by the Aragons called Appollonia. That port is currently at the bottom of the ocean. Either they had a lot of sinners there, or nature has a way of causing the oceans to rise and fall over the centuries. Maybe there will be a sunken ship there that will have the evidence that we need that predates the fossil findings in Sardinia. Until then….
