Ep 525: The Grape Miniseries -- Cinsault

Wine for Normal People

Alcohol, Lifestyle, Arts, Education, Food, Wine, Dining, Grapes

4.6 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 25 June 2024

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Cinsault or Cinsaut is a grape you’ve probably rarely heard of, but if you drink Provence or southern French rosé you have it all the time! The grape is planted widely in the south of France, but the grape’s biggest champions are in the New World, where Cinsault is getting new attention for making light, acidic, refreshing reds.

This is a warm-climate grape, that actually thrives in dry and hot places. This grape is essential to our changing climate -- it retains acidity with low sugars even in the hottest conditions, providing a lifted, bright note to reds and rosés.

Photo: Carignan. Source: Vins-Rhone

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With typical aromas of ripe red berry fruit, like raspberry, strawberry and cherry, warm spice, and violet or dark flower notes and floral, strawberry, peach, and tea leaf notes in rosé, this is a lovely grape if made well.

Where can you find Cinsault as a varietal wine or a big player in a blend?

France: Southern Rhône, Provence and the Languedoc have big plantings of Cinsault
Other Countries: Italy, Spain, North Africa, Chile, Australia

Then we get to the most impassioned fans of Cinsault…

Lebanon: In the mountainous region of the Bekaa Valley, Cinsault has thrived for decades. The famed Chateau Musar red relies on Cinsault in its most prestigious blend

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California, USA: California has the oldest Cinsault vines in the world in Lodi, California at the Bechthold Vineyard which was planted in 1886.

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South Africa saw growth in Cinsault in the mid 1800s because growers knew it could handle the hot, arid climate around Cape Town. It is a parent of Pilotage. I mention is Natte Valleij as a great Cinsault producer. Other producers from many regions in South Africa are also doing great things with Cinsault.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Wine for Normal People, the Podcasts for People who like Wine for Normal People,
0:09.8	the podcast for people who like wine, but not the snobbery that goes with it.
0:13.2	I'm your host Elizabeth Schneider author of the Wine for Normal People Book and
0:19.2	certified wine dork. This podcast is sponsored by my exclusive and awesome sponsor Wine Access.
0:26.7	I love them so much that I have a wine club with them.
0:30.4	150 bucks, six bottles, four times a year.
0:34.2	Coming up, a special shipment.
0:36.0	Serge Dorei, French Wine Importer, many of you have listened to him on the show.
0:40.1	He is spectacular.
0:41.8	And this shipment is all his wines really hard to get wines that's
0:45.6	what wine access specializes in go to wine access dot com slash normal listen in the
0:49.9	middle of the show for more details. I've been drinking a ton of rosé because this show is
0:58.3	being recorded in the summer and the northern hemisphere and it is incredibly hot in this summer 2024 and I
1:06.9	started to think about what are the grapes in a rosé and what do they each contribute?
1:15.3	Grinash, Surah, Movedra, these are the main grapes
1:18.9	that are usually in at least a Rhone or Provence roé, but there is one grape that is almost always
1:26.8	included that no one ever talks about and that is Sensoe.
1:33.8	Actually, nobody even really agrees on how to spell it.
1:37.0	So some people spell it C-I-N-S-A-U-L-T. And some people spell it C-A-L-T and some people spell it C-I-N-S-A-U-T with no L.
1:49.1	It is not really even thought of enough that people can agree on how to spell it. I usually
1:53.9	spell it with the L so I'm going to continue to go with that.
1:56.9	Censo is a grape you probably never heard of but if you drink rosé you drink
	...

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