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All About Teinturiers and Five to Try
With Halloween upon us and nighttime drawing earlier and earlier with the end of daylight savings, let us turn our attention toward the deepest, darkest set of grape varieties: teinturiers. A rare phenomenon, teinturiers are nevertheless found around the world, yielding a unique and brooding set of wines. Here is what you need to know.
What Is a Teinturier Grape?
A teinturier grape is a type of red variety for which not only the skins, but also the pulp and the juice of its berries are pigmented. This is an extremely rare occurrence, and for most red wines, color is extracted exclusively through the skins, while the pulp and juice are both naturally white. For this reason, red wine production relies on a period where the crushed grapes macerate with the skins in contact with the juice. Indeed, eliminating any maceration makes it possible for most red grapes to be vinified into white wine, a very common practice in Champagne, where red varieties Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier comprise large components of most white Champagne blends.
For teinturier grapes, making white wine is impossible. The name teinturier derives from French for “dyer” or “tinter,” and accordingly, all wine from teinturiers is pigmented. Even making a pale rosé is challenging—without any skin contact such wines are already richly colored. Conversely, teinturier varieties often yield some of the deepest, most opulently tannic wines of all. Many often exhibit a wonderfully rustic profile, with inky tannins and savory herbaceous characters.
Five Teinturier Grapes to Try
1. Saperavi
The signature red grape of the Republic of Georgia, Saperavi aptly translates to “something to color with” from Georgian. Native to the Meskheti region, which spans the border of Georgia and Turkey, Saperavi comprises 40% of plantings in Georgia’s famous Kakheti region. The variety is vinified into a wide range of styles, including examples aged in oak and traditional qvevri (giant clay amphorae), as well as sweet and fortified wines.
2. Alicante Bouschet
Alicante Bouschet takes its name from Henri Bouschet, the French viticulturalist who, in 1866, crossed Grenache and Petit Bouschet to form this new variety. In Spain, Alicante Bouschet is also known as Garnacha Tintorera, with tintorera, like teinturier, meaning “dyer.” Beyond Iberia—and especially Portugal’s Alentejo—an abundance of old vine Alicante Bouschet is found in California, where it contributes to many wonderful historic field blends.
3. Chambourcin
One of the most celebrated varieties of the Eastern and Midwestern United States, Chambourcin was created in the 1860s by Joannes Seyve. A French-American hybrid, its exact parentage remains a mystery, though its genetics are known to be remarkably complicated—deriving from the Eurasian Vitis vinifera, as well as at least five native American vine species. Well-adapted to humid climates like Missouri, Chambourcin offers alluring wines with spiced plum flavors.
4. Karmrahyut
Another teinturier from the Caucasus, Karmrahyut was developed in 1950 at the viticultural research center in Merdzavan, Armenia by S. A. Pogosyan. Similar to Chambourcin, Karmrahyut has an extremely complex pedigree, though it does have some genetric relationship to Pinot Noir (ironically, a very lightly colored variety). Karmrahyut means “red juicy” in Armenian, and it is enjoyed for its fleshy medicinal flavors.
5. Colorino
Colorino is an important blending grape in Tuscany’s Chianti and Chianti Classico regions, where, as its name suggests, the variety can darken the hue of its wines. Sangiovese, which forms the foundation of all Chianti and Chianti Classico, is naturally lightly colored. Accordingly, Colorino provides valuable depth and added structures to these famous wines.
