Cabernet Gernischt is the name given to a red wine grape variety used in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. Originally believed to be of European origin, and similar if not identical to

Cabernet Franc Cabernet Franc is one of the major black grape varieties worldwide. It is principally grown for blending with Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot in the Bordeaux style, but can also be vinified alone, as in the Loire's Chinon. In addition to being us ...

, Cabernet Gernischt has since been proven to be genetically identical to

Carménère The Carménère grape is a wine grape variety originally planted in the Médoc region of Bordeaux, France, where it was used to produce deep red wines and occasionally used for blending purposes in the same manner as Petit Verdot. A member of t ...

Name

It was believed that the name is derived from the now-lost European Cabernet Gemischt grape, whose name at some point was changed to Cabernet Gernischt (either by intent or by misspelling). The vine was mistakenly called "mixed cabernet" (German: "gemischt") when it arrived in China. According to a story, one of the many Shanghai-based Jewish traders bought cuttings of the vine and named it "Cabernet gernischt", a play on the

Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...

word '' gornischt'', which taken together would mean "no Cabernet at all".

History

The history of the grape dates back to the late 19th century when the

Phylloxera epidemic The Great French Wine Blight was a severe blight of the mid-19th century that destroyed many of the vineyards in France and laid waste to the wine industry. It was caused by an aphid that originated in North America and was carried across the Atl ...

destroyed most of the European vineyards, most notably in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. It was believed that one of the varieties lost to the European vineyards was the Cabernet Gemischt grape, an ancestor of today's

. The

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 perhaps 8,000 years ago, ...

variety was introduced into the

Shandong Shandong ( , ; ; alternately romanized as Shantung) is a coastal province of the People's Republic of China and is part of the East China region. Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history since the beginning of Chinese civilizati ...

region of China in 1892 by Zhangyu Winery (or Changyu Pioneer Wine Company).Journal of Fruit Science, G. Luo, China Agricultural University, 1999 DNA profiling carried out by grape geneticist José Vouillamoz (co-author of Wine Grapes) confirms Gernischt's relationship to two classic Bordeaux varieties, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc, but shows it is, in fact, Carménère. This explains the gamey notes and aromas of green bell pepper that mark out Cabernet Gernischt wines; these are also notably similar to Carménère of

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

.Mr Zhang, director of Changyu Wine Museum in Yantai; Mr Gérard Colin, general director at Domaines Barons de Rothschild Citic Wine Estate in Shandong province, both in talks with the OIV MSc programme in wine management, June 2010

Notes

External links

VITIS-VEA - Viticulture & Enology Abstracts (German & English)Changyu Pioneer Wine Co. page
Red wine grape varieties {{wine-grape-stub