Cinsaut on Variety More Generally
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ALTERNATIVE VITICULTURE WINEMAKINGVITICULTURENEWS VARIETIES WHAT IS THE WINEMAKING Imperial. It has always had Cinsaut on variety more generally. It’s a hand-sell, PROCESS FOR YOUR CINSAUT AND the back label. to a certain extent. Most people don’t HOW HAS IT CHANGED OVER THE I like Cinsaut for its medium-bodied know whether Blue Imperial is the YEARS? character. In Rutherglen we have name of the blend or the variety so we Cinsaut is a very large berry, it’s Shiraz and Cabernet and Durif, the full- explain that. When you hand-sell it for relatively pale in skin colour with bodied styles. I find medium-bodied its unique nature it often turns into a fairly heavy bloom. Not deep in wines pretty enjoyable. It’s got a nice your biggest seller. If it was sitting on a colour, not black, probably more blue fruitiness to it, a little bit of spice, fine- shelf in a supermarket most people in colour. A very big berry, very big grained chalky tannins. It’s got a lovely, would bypass it but it’s a bit of a 'try- bunches, you’d think you’re putting a flavoursome, mid-palate with before-you-buy' and it often does table grape through. elegance. A great lunch wine. strongly convert to sales when you We try and get to 14 Baume. hand-sell it. DO PEOPLE STRUGGLE TO Sometimes we’ve got to settle for under None of it’s exported. We don’t UNDERSTAND CINSAUT? that. It still makes a pretty solid wine at make a huge amount of it. Most of it is 13 Baume but ideally 14. We crush People definitely struggle with the sold at cellar door and to a few them into open fermenters. At the pronunciation and to understand the restaurants. Not a lot of it goes into theWVJ crusher we add tartaric acid; we add a trade. forWe $25 sell ait bottle at cellar door. little bit of tannin. We add the yeast a day after. Overnight the cap floats, we’ll drain off, inoculate with yeast and put CINSAUT the heading down boards, submerged cap. I’m still doing things the same way By Peter Dry, Emeritus Fellow, my father did, maybe I might add a The Australian Wine Research Institute touch more tartaric acid, and he didn’t add tannin, but just minor changes. It’s normally about a seven-day BACKGROUND VITICULTURE ferment. It might get pressed off with Cinsaut (SIN-soh) originated in Budburst is late and maturity is just a little bit of sugar left to finish off in the south of France where it was mid-season. Vigour is moderate with barrel; older, large oak, 1590 litres first mentioned in the 17th century. spreading growth habit. Bunches are or 2500 litres through malo. As time Although it is still a major variety in medium to large and well-filled to prevails it will go into hogsheads, both France (21,000ha in 2010), the planted compact with medium tough-skinned American and French, predominantly area has more than halved since the berries. Yield is high. Spur pruning is French because of its elegance. We late 1970s and is largely restricted to mainly used. Susceptibility to foliar and might put a component of new oak in Provence, Languedoc and Roussillon. bunch fungal diseases is average, but there; we’re averaging probably three- In the 19th century, large areas were risk of trunk diseases is said to be high. year-old oak and as a medium-bodied planted in Algeria and Morocco (where It is well adapted to hot and dry sites. wine it only needs 10 months in oak. it is still the most planted variety) in Then it sits in bottle to settle before order to supply wine to France. In WINE release. South Africa it was the most important Cinsaut wines are generally light- variety until the 1990s — today there bodied, soft, fruity and aromatic with WHAT’S IN A NAME? FROM BLUE are just 2000ha or so. There are also low tannin. Most often it is regarded IMPERIAL TO CINSAUT AND BACK significant plantings in Italy (Puglia), as a ‘workhorse’ variety, but wines AGAIN. Chile and Lebanon. The global area from low-yielding, dry-farmed bush We called it Blue Imperial right at the (2010) is 36,000ha (25% less than in vines in France, South Africa and Chile start. We don’t really know why, 2000). can be medium-bodied, well balanced whether when the cuttings came in the Synonyms include Black Malvoisie and delicately perfumed with fresh tags had washed off them! Imperial was (California), Black Prince and Blue strawberry and cherry notes. In the often a measurement, big, and it had a Imperial (Australia), Cargadora (Chile), south of France and in Australia, blue look to it. I’ve got no idea, that’s a Cinqsaut (Languedoc), Cinsault Cinsaut is mainly used in blends guess. It was called Blue Imperial (France, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia) with Carignan, Grenache and other through Rutherglen, Ulliade in New Grecau (Sardinia), Hermitage (South varieties. It can produce good quality South Wales and probably Barossa and Africa), Marroquin, Marrouquin and rosé wines. some people called it Cinsaut, so it had Ottavianello (Puglia), Picardan Noir For further information on this three names in Australia. We had a (Var), Piquepoul d’Uzès, Prunelat and and other emerging varieties, contact marketing fellow come along and said it Prunellas (Gironde), Samsó and Sinsó Marcel Essling (marcel.essling@ really should be called its correct name (Spain). awri.com.au or 08 8313 6600) at The so we labelled it Cinsaut with Blue Cinsaut has been in Australia for Australian Wine Research Institute Imperial underneath. Then another many years but now there is only 60ha to arrange the presentation of the marketing fellow came along and said, or so planted, with at least 20 wine Alternative Varieties Research to “what are you calling it Cinsaut for, it’s producers, mainly in South Australia. Practice program in your region. Blue Imperial, it always has been!” So we’ve actually changed it back to Blue WINE & VITICULTURE JOURNAL AUTUMN 2019 V34N2 58 www.winetitles.com.au.