Grape Variety: Cinsault

Colour: Red

Cinsault is an easy-growing variety produces a very large crop of six to ten tons per acre. At this crop level, it shows little flavour distinction. When properly managed to crop from just two to four tons per acre, it can produce quite flavourful wines of strong aroma and easy quaffability.  The tight bunches rot easily, so it prospers in drier climes. The Cinsault vine is fairly drought tolerant and has a fairly short growing season.

It is one of the most often planted varieties in Southern France, Algeria and Morocco, and is a major red variety in South Africa, Corsica, and Lebanon. The North African plantings were particularly important when, as colonies of France, their wine was shipped across the Mediterranean for blending.

Le Pradel from Domaine Terrasses d’ Elise is - unusually - 100% Cinsault, aged 12 months in barrique, with low yields of around 25 hectolitres per hectare. Peppery slightly “confit” fruit nose (notes too of violets, caramelised orange and olive) and palate of prunes, figs, and “fruits rouges”, and very individual in style. Les Servieres is also made from 100% Cinsault, the vines planted over a hundred years ago on south east facing hillside terraces where their roots plunge deep into the hard marl and clay-limestone soil. The wine is vinified on the lees for seven days and then is matured for nine months in small oak casks. The aromas remind one of Pinot Noir – floral notes with a hint of confiture. The nose is dominated by sharp red fruits (redcurrants, cherries, bitter orange) and in the mouth the wine is fresh and aromatic with an attractive finish. This savoury wine has several gastronomic buddies: try it with grilled quails with cherries, or pot au feu, or chicken with tarragon.

Didier Barral’s Faugeres is the baby of the stable, a blend of Carignan, Grenache and Cinsault. The Cinsault is amazing, yielding luscious aromas of confit cherry, damson and violet; the Carignan provides colour and concentration and the Grenache gives fragrant garrigue notes of laurel, bay and thyme as well as a supple mouthfeel.

Another example of a rosé made from Cinsault and Grenache is the Cotes de Provence Rosé from Domaine de Tamary - a delightfully pearly pink translucent wine yielding all the perfumes of Provence: aromas of orange flowers, Bergamot, lilac, wild rose, geranium and jasmine, medium-bodied, with spicy berry fruit in the finish.

Cinsault is one of the many minor grapes used to make red Chateauneuf du Pape - together with Grenache and Syrah and Mourvedre and is a prominent component of one of the cuvees of Barroche. Cinsault is also used in blends in Morocco and the Lebanon - it is also most notably used in conjunction with Cabernet Sauvignon to produce the cult red wine from Chateau Musar.