Carignan - Wine Regions

Wine Regions

The grape is most widely found in south France, particularly in the Languedoc regions of Aude, Gard and Hérault where it is often made as Vin ordinaire and in some Vin de pays wines. In Spain the grape is almost non-existent in its ancestral home of Aragon where it was once a secondary component of wine from the Cariñena region after Grenache. It has found an increasing prominence in the Catalan wine region of Priorat, where it's the main variety in the northern half of the appellation and has been vindicated by a number of young growers such as South African Eben Sadie, and also Costers del Segre, Montsant, Penedès, Tarragona and Terra Alta. As of 2004, Spain had around 7,000 ha (17,300 acres). In Italy the grape is most commonly found in Sardinia and Lazio where it is often found as a rosé. The Carignano del Sulcis DOC features a Carignan based rosso from the Sardinian islands of Sant'Antioco and San Pietro. In the New World, Carignan was often planted in the warmer wine regions of California, Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Australia and South Africa.

At one point in California's wine history, Carignane (as it is known there) was the third most widely planted grape variety but has since dropped considerably in production . The majority of the vines were planted in the Central Valley and used to make inexpensive box and jug wines. In the 1970s and 1980s, Californian Carignane was one of the leading "home winemaking" grapes in production. In Australia the grape was often confused with the Bonvedro vine, which is similarly prone to diseases, but in recent years Australian winemakers have been able to identify true Carignan. The grape is still popular in North Africa in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. Carignan also played an important role in the early development of the Israeli wine industry though it is not as prominent today. Chinese winemakers have also experimented with growing Carignan in some of their warmer wine regions.