wine
Wine is an alcoholic drink made from Fermentation in winemaking, fermented fruit. Yeast in winemaking, Yeast consumes the sugar in the fruit and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Wine is most often made f ...
grape
A grape is a fruit, botanically a berry, of the deciduous woody vines of the flowering plant genus ''Vitis''. Grapes are a non- climacteric type of fruit, generally occurring in clusters.
The cultivation of grapes began approximately 8,0 ...
grown primarily in
Languedoc-Roussillon
Languedoc-Roussillon (; ; ) is a former regions of France, administrative region of France. On 1 January 2016, it joined with the region of Midi-Pyrénées to become Occitania (administrative region), Occitania. It comprised five departments o ...
in southern
France
France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
. Between the late 19th century and the 1960s, it was France's most grown grape variety, but plantings of Aramon have been in continuous decline since the mid-20th century. Aramon has also been grown in
Algeria
Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered to Algeria–Tunisia border, the northeast by Tunisia; to Algeria–Libya border, the east by Libya; to Alger ...
,
Argentina
Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...
and
Chile
Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...
but nowhere else did it ever reach the popularity it used to have in the south of France.
It is most noted for its very high productivity, and yields can reach levels as high as 400
hectolitres
The litre ( Commonwealth spelling) or liter (American spelling) (SI symbols L and l, other symbol used: ℓ) is a metric unit of volume. It is equal to 1 cubic decimetre (dm3), 1000 cubic centimetres (cm3) or 0.001 cubic metres (m3). A cubic ...
per
hectare
The hectare (; SI symbol: ha) is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100-metre sides (1 hm2), that is, square metres (), and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. ...
phylloxera
Grape phylloxera is an insect pest of grapevines worldwide, originally native to eastern North America. Grape phylloxera (''Daktulosphaira vitifoliae'' (Fitch 1855) belongs to the family Phylloxeridae, within the order Hemiptera, bugs); orig ...
, and
powdery mildew
Powdery mildew is a fungus, fungal disease that affects a wide range of plants. Powdery mildew diseases are caused by many different species of Ascomycota, ascomycete fungi in the order Erysiphales. Powdery mildew is one of the easier plant disea ...
led to its reputation as workhorse grape that could be relied on by growers for dependable financial returns.J. Robinson ''Vines, Grapes & Wines'' pg 205 Mitchell Beazley 1986 However, when cropped at high yields, the resultant wines are very light red in color (but show a blue-black tinge), low in alcohol and extract and generally thin on character. Such Aramon wine is often blended with wine from grapes of darker color such as
Alicante Bouschet
Alicante Bouschet or Alicante Henri Bouschet is a wine grape variety that has been widely cultivated since 1866. It is a cross of Petit Bouschet (itself a cross of the very old variety Teinturier du Cher and Aramon) and Grenache.Grand Noir de la Calmette to darken the resulting wine.
If planted on poor soils and pruned very severely to much smaller yields, it has been shown to be able to give concentrated wines with spicy, earthy, herbaceous, and somewhat rustic character. However, such Aramon wines are extremely rare, but some varietal wine is still produced in Languedoc.
A viticultural drawback of Aramon is that it
buds
In botany, a bud is an undeveloped or Plant embryogenesis, embryonic Shoot (botany), shoot and normally occurs in the axil of a leaf or at the tip of a Plant stem, stem. Once formed, a bud may remain for some time in a dormancy, dormant conditi ...
early and ripens late, which means that it only is suitable for growing in hotter regions, and that it is very sensitive to spring frost.
History
When the south of France - '' Le Midi'' - was connected by
railway
Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...
s to the more industrial and populous north of the country in the 19th century, the cost of transporting wines and other goods decreased considerably. Previously, waterways had provided the best transportation routes for wine, and only more expensive wines had been able to bear the cost of long overland transport. In the resulting 19th century vineyard expansion of southern France, Aramon became the grape variety of choice in
Languedoc
The Province of Languedoc (, , ; ) is a former province of France.
Most of its territory is now contained in the modern-day region of Occitanie in Southern France. Its capital city was Toulouse. It had an area of approximately .
History
...
. As an indication of the wine industry boom of the era, the vineyards of the
Hérault
Hérault (; , ) is a departments of France, department of the Regions of France, region of Occitania (administrative region), Occitania, Southern France. Named after the Hérault (river), Hérault River, its Prefectures in France, prefecture is M ...
department (one part of Languedoc) more than doubled between 1849 and 1869, when they covered a massive . Thus, in this department alone, a vineyard surface somewhat larger than that of the entire
Bordeaux
Bordeaux ( ; ; Gascon language, Gascon ; ) is a city on the river Garonne in the Gironde Departments of France, department, southwestern France. A port city, it is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the Prefectures in F ...
region of today was added in 20 years, most of it planted with Aramon.
The wine produced was undistinguished, but it was produced cheaply and in huge quantities. The simple reds of Languedoc initially competed with equally simple reds made closer to
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
, in areas where most of the wine production disappeared in the early 20th century due to the combined effect of competition and phylloxera. Thus, the wines were not made in a mold that wine consumers of the late 20th and early 21st century would have recognised as a typical "warm climate" style, but rather outmatched other thin red wines by means of sheer volume and lower production costs. Such wines were primarily drunk as everyday table wine by French workers, and they were known as ''petit rouge'' – small reds.
Since high-yielding Aramon gives one of the least coloured wines that still pass as red, the practice of blending such wines with wines from ''
teinturier
Teinturier grapes () are grapes whose flesh and juice are red in colour due to anthocyanin pigments accumulating within the pulp of the grape berry itself. In non-teinturier red grapes, anthocyanin pigments are confined to the outer skin tissue ...
'' grapes such as Alicante Bouschet was a measure used to give them a measure of increased credibility as reds.
Later, Aramon-based light red wines got competition on the French market from cheap red wines from
North Africa
North Africa (sometimes Northern Africa) is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region. However, it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of t ...
, primarily from the then-French colony of
Algeria
Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered to Algeria–Tunisia border, the northeast by Tunisia; to Algeria–Libya border, the east by Libya; to Alger ...
Carignan
Carignan (; also known as Mazuelo, Bovale Grande, Cariñena, Carinyena, Samsó, Carignane, and Carignano) is a red grape variety of Spanish origin that is more commonly found in French wine but is widely planted throughout the western Medite ...
, had more colour, alcohol and concentration than the typical Languedoc wines of the era. Since these characteristics were attractive to consumers, it became common in the 20th century to blend cheap wines from the south of France with Algerian and other North African wines.
These characters lead to a decreased popularity of Aramon in France from the mid-20th century. This trend was reinforced when the French vineyards were hit by frost in 1956 and 1963, which hit the frost-sensitive Aramon particularly hard. Aramon was primarily replaced with Carignan, which overtook Aramon as France's most grown grape variety in the 1960s.
In 2000, there remained of Aramon in France, primarily in the Hérault, with a rapidly decreasing trend.
Origin and offspring
Despite its similarities to the hybrids Villard noir and Couderc, Aramon is not a hybrid but rather a ''
Vitis vinifera
''Vitis vinifera'', the common grape vine, is a species of flowering plant, native to the Mediterranean Basin, Mediterranean region, Central Europe, and southwestern Asia, from Morocco and Portugal north to southern Germany and east to northern ...
''. Some have proposed that Aramon originated in
Spain
Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...
, but
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid (; DNA) is a polymer composed of two polynucleotide chains that coil around each other to form a double helix. The polymer carries genetic instructions for the development, functioning, growth and reproduction of al ...
typing has revealed
Gouais blanc
Gouais blanc () or Weißer Heunisch () is a white grape variety that is seldom grown today but is important as the ancestor of many traditional French and German grape varieties. The name ''Gouais'' derives from the old French adjective ‘ ...
to be one of its parents, with the other parent so far unidentified.Vitis International Variety Catalogue: Aramon noir , accessed on May 25, 2008 This parentage is more typical of French or Germanic varieties, but given its heat-demanding viticultural characteristics, it is unlikely to have survived in cultivation in a colder region. Therefore, its origin could very well be southern France.
Aramon was used extensively by the early French hybridizers in crosses with American grape species like '' Vitis rupestris'' and '' Vitis aestivalis'' as a source of good viticultural characteristics, and proved a better parent than many of the better known ''V. vinifera'' cultivars. Viticulturalist
Albert Seibel
Albert Seibel (1844–1936) was a French physician and viticulturist who made hybrid crosses of European wine grapes (''Vitis vinifera'') with native North American grapes. His crosses are known as Seibel grapes.
Biography
Seibel was born in A ...
crossed Aramon with the American hybrid grape Munson to produce Flot rouge.
Aramon was also a parent of the ill-fated AxR1 rootstock, which is "Aramon x Rupestris Ganzin No. 1". AxR1 caused much problems in the Californian wine industry.
Synonyms
Synonyms for Aramon include Aramon Chernyi, Aramon Negro, Aramon noir, Aramon Pignat, Aramon Pigne, Aramon Rozovyi, Aramon Saint Joseph, Aramone, Aramonen, Aramont, Arramont, Burchardt's Prince, Burckarti Prinz, Burkhardt, Eramoul, Eromoul, Gros Bouteillan, Kek Aramon, Pisse-Vin, Plant Riche, Rabalairé, Ramonen, Reballairé, Reballayre, Revalaire, Revellaire, Ugni Neru, Ugni Nevu, Ugni noir, Uni Negre, Uni Noir.
Despite sharing several synonyms with Bouteillan noir, Aramon has no known relationship with the Provençal wine grape.J. Robinson, J. Harding and J. Vouillamoz ''Wine Grapes - A complete guide to 1,368 vine varieties, including their origins and flavours'' pg 131 Allen Lane 2012
Aramon blanc and Aramon gris
The lighter-colored
mutation
In biology, a mutation is an alteration in the nucleic acid sequence of the genome of an organism, virus, or extrachromosomal DNA. Viral genomes contain either DNA or RNA. Mutations result from errors during DNA or viral replication, ...
s Aramon blanc and Aramon gris also exist, and small plantations can still be found in the Hérault.
Synonyms for Aramon blanc include Aramon Panche, Brom, Langedokskii Belyi, Eramoul, Feher Aramon, Game Provansalskii, Langedokskii Belyi, Ochsenauge Weiss, Weißer Ochsenauge.Vitis International Variety Catalogue: Aramon blanc , accessed on May 25, 2008
Aramon gris is known under the synonym Szürke Aramon.Vitis International Variety Catalogue: Aramon gris , accessed on May 25, 2008