Aramon or Aramon noir is a variety of red

wine Wine is an alcoholic drink typically made from fermented grapes. Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Different varieties of grapes and strains of yeasts are ...

grape A grape is a fruit, botanically a berry (botany), berry, of the deciduous woody vines of the flowering plant genus ''Vitis''. Grapes are a non-Climacteric (botany), climacteric type of fruit, generally occurring in clusters. The cultivation of ...

grown primarily in

Languedoc-Roussillon Languedoc-Roussillon (; oc, Lengadòc-Rosselhon ; ca, Llenguadoc-Rosselló) is a former administrative region of France. On 1 January 2016, it joined with the region of Midi-Pyrénées to become Occitania. It comprised five departments, and b ...

in southern

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...

. 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 ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , religi ...

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, t ...

and

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 eas ...

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 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), or 10,000 m2, and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. An acre is ...

. The vine's resistance to oidium,

phylloxera Grape phylloxera is an insect pest of commercial grapevines worldwide, originally native to eastern North America. Grape phylloxera (''Daktulosphaira vitifoliae'' (Fitch 1855) belong to the family Phylloxeridae, within the order Hemiptera, ...

, and powdery mildew led to its reputation as

workhorse A draft horse (US), draught horse (UK) or dray horse (from the Old English ''dragan'' meaning "to draw or haul"; compare Dutch ''dragen'' and German ''tragen'' meaning "to carry" and Danish ''drage'' meaning "to draw" or "to fare"), less often ...

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 and 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 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 that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in Track (rail transport), tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the ...

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 (; , ; oc, Lengadòc ) 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 approximatel ...

. As an indication of the wine industry boom of the era, the vineyards of the

Hérault Hérault (; oc, Erau, ) is a department of the region of Occitania, Southern France. Named after the Hérault River, its prefecture is Montpellier. It had a population of 1,175,623 in 2019. Thus, in this department alone, a vineyard surface somewhat larger than that of the entire

Bordeaux Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture ...

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 and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...

, 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 Table wine (rarely abbreviated TW) is a wine term with two different meanings: a style of wine and a quality level within wine classification. In the United States, the term primarily designates a wine style: an ordinary wine which is not fortif ...

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'' 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, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in t ...

, primarily from the then-French colony of

Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , religi ...

. Algerian wines, produced primarily from

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 Villard grapes are French wine hybrid grape created by French horticulturist Bertille Seyve and his father-in-law Victor Villard (father and grandfather of grape breeder Joannes Seyve). They include the dark skin Villard noir and the white-wine ...

and

Couderc Couderc is a surname, and may refer to: * Anne-Marie Couderc (born 1950), French politician and business executive * Céline Couderc (born 1983), French female freestyle swimmer * Joseph-Antoine-Charles Couderc (1810–1875), French operatic tenor/ ...

, Aramon is not a

hybrid Hybrid may refer to: Science * Hybrid (biology), an offspring resulting from cross-breeding ** Hybrid grape, grape varieties produced by cross-breeding two ''Vitis'' species ** Hybridity, the property of a hybrid plant which is a union of two diff ...

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

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, but DNA 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 ''Vitis rupestris'' is a species of grape native to the United States that is known by many common names including July, Coon, sand, sugar, beach, bush, currant, ingar, rock, and mountain grape. It is used for breeding several French-American hy ...

'' 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 Auben ...

crossed Aramon with the American hybrid grape Munson to produce

Flot rouge Flot rouge is a red hybrid grape that is a crossing of Munson (also known as Jaeger 70) and the Languedoc-Roussillon wine grape Aramon noir. The grape was created by French viticulturalist Albert Seibel and was crossed with the Seibel grape 405 ...

. 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 Bouteillan noir is a red French wine grape variety that is grown in the Provence wine region of southern France. While the grape has been recorded growing in the Vaucluse region since at least the early 18th century, today the grape is virtually ex ...

, Aramon has no known relationship with the

Provençal wine Provence (Provençal) wine comes from the French wine-producing region of Provence in southeast France. The Romans called the area ''provincia nostra'' ("our province"), giving the region its name. Just south of the Alps, it was the first Roman pr ...

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, m ...

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

References

{{Authority control Red wine grape varieties Grape varieties of France