Skip to main content 

Welcome to…
That Useful Wine Site

  Wine explained, clearly and helpfully, including critic-recommended specimens of each variety.

(click for menu)
bottles grapes glasses barrels
You are here:  Home  »  varietals  »  reds  »   ( = this page)
(Click on any image above to see it at full size.)
You are here:  Home  »  varietals  »  reds  »   ( = this page)

You can get a site directory by clicking on the “hamburger” icon () in the upper right of this page.
Or you can search this site with Google (standard Google-search rules apply).
(Be aware that “sponsored” links to other sites will appear atop the actual results.)

Search term(s):





Welcome to That Useful Wine Site!

You have apparently come to this page from a link on a search engine or another site. If this is your first visit here, I much recommend that you take a few minutes to look over the introductory material accessible via the blue “Introductory” zone of the Site Menu available from the “hamburger” icon in the upper right of this (and every) page. An understanding of the purposes and principles of organization of this site will, I hope and believe, much augment your experience here, for this page and in general. You can simply click this link to get at the site front page, which, unsurprisingly, is the best place to start. Thank you for visiting.

The Valdiguié Grape


Quick page jumps:


About Valdiguié

(Synonyms: )Aramon du Sud-Ouest, Brocal, Brocol, Cahors, Cot de Cheragas, Cote verte, Folle noire, Gamay, Gamay 15, Gamay of Beaujolais, Gros Auxerrois, Isabelle, Jan Pierrou, Jan Pierrou, Jasmin, Jean-Pierrou, Jean-Pierrou at Sauzet, Mourvedre d’Afrique, Moutet, Napa Gamay, Noir de Chartres, Panse, Plant de Cros, Plant de la Roxo, Plant du Midi, Quercy, and Valdiguer.

Background

Map showing whence Valdiguié

Valdiguié is a red-wine grape whose exact origins, though recent (probably early to midle 1800s), are somewhat cloudy. It seems agreed that the variety was a natural cross, discovered by someone—a grower or possibly a vineyard worker—named Valdiguié. The region where it was discovered was in or around either the French commune of Puylaroque in southern France or the nearby commune of Aujols (see map at left).

Valdiguié soon became popular throughout southern France, being a vineyard favorite: high yields and good disease resistance. In time, vine cuttings came to California, where—especially during Prohibition—they were much-liked for the same reasons the French liked them. But the problem was that the California growers were under the mistaken impression that they were growing some type of Gamay, and the wines were long sold as “Napa Gamay”, till relatively recent (1980) analyses revealed their true nature. Since 1999, such wines are required by law to be labelled as Valdiguié.

The variety, being productive (and so inexpensive), was often handled carelessly by winemakers and used to make easily sold plonk. Consequently, in both France and America, plantings have been steadily declining: France now has only a few small patches, in Languedoc and Provence. Most of the remaining action is in California, where a handful (one estimate says 15) winemakers are working with the variety. But, though the grape will never approach “noble”, when handled with some care and respect can make simple but quite pleasing wines.

Valdiguié wines are typically light in alcohol, dark-colored, with a very obvious red-berry nose and palate—raspberry and strawberry are quite frequently cited. Some makers apply a little carbonic maceration to produce wines with a fizzy/spritzy nature; more generally, it tends to be styled much like a true Gamay would be. It is a nice wine when something easy and fruit-forward without being icky is wanted, and it should be better-respected than it seems to be.

Factoid: Valdiguié wine was first released as a commercial bottling in 1874.

Return to the page top. ↑


Some Descriptions of Valdiguié Wines

Return to the page top. ↑


Some Valdiguie Bottlings to Try

(About this list.)

Regrettably, there are no Valdiguie bottlings that meet our quality/price/availability criteria. Sorry.

Return to the page top. ↑




Disclaimers  |  Privacy Policy


All content copyright © 2024 The Owlcroft Company
(excepting quoted material, which is believed to be Fair Use).

This web page is strictly compliant with the WHATWG (Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group) HyperText Markup Language (HTML5) Protocol versionless “Living Standard” and the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) Cascading Style Sheets (CSS3) Protocol v3  — because we care about interoperability. Click on the logos below to test us!




This page was last modified on Sunday, 8 December 2024, at 9:46 pm Pacific Time.