Australian Wine from
Alternative Grape Varieties

Cinsaut red wine variety

Cinsaut

A high yielding, workhorse red variety, also known in Australia as Blue Imperial and Oeillade. Other synonyms include Espagne, Hermitage, Malaga, Ottavianello, Picardan Noir, and Prunella.

It was formerly very popular in Southern France for both vin ordinaire and fortified styles but is now out of favour. Cinsaut's stronghold is the Languedoc where it is now being replaced by more fashionable varieties such as Shiraz and Mourvedre.

This variety, according to Robin Bradley in his Australian Wine Pocketbook of 1978, is "used, mostly in South Australia, to lend mediocrity to otherwise good wine".

Cinsaut's other claim to fame is that it is the crossing parent, along with Pinot nior of the South African variety Pinotage.

Despite this bad press, this variety is still most often used as blending material, probably in more wines mention the fact on their labels, but there are a couple of exceptions. Foggo wines in McLaren Vale have had success with a Grenache Shiraz Cinsaut.

The Cinsaut grape variety on its own makes quite good rose. Again Foggo Wines are leading the way with a couple of bronze medals, but as Sandie van der Wiel of Foggo says "It is difficult to succeed with different varieties as often the judges have not come across the variety before."

Some of the Australian wineries using Cinsaut include

Chambers Rosewood Rutherglen
Donnybrook Estate Geographe
Foggo Wines McLaren Vale
Happs Margaret River
Kabminye Wines Barossa Valley
Morris Rutherglen
Murray Street Vineyard Barossa Valley
Patterson Lakes Estate Port Phillip Zone
Spinifex Barossa Valley
Vintara Rutherglen

My friend Herb Van De Wiel at Foggo Wines is an enthusiast for this variety. He uses it to make a rose, as a red wine blended with Shiraz and Grenache and a lovely sparkling red. You can buy these Cinsaut wines from Foggo Winery

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