Red wine grapes: 11 varieties from Cabernet to Gamay

For most of the bottles worth bidding on, the grape was not the winemaker's decision. It was the appellation's, written into a decree long before the vines went in.

Eleven red wine grapes carry the fine wine market: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Pinot Noir, Syrah, Nebbiolo, Sangiovese, Tempranillo, Grenache, Malbec and Gamay. Six of them clear the 100,000-hectare line above which the OIV publishes world totals at all. Its 2017 survey put Cabernet Sauvignon at 341,000 hectares in 2015, Merlot at 266,000, Tempranillo at 231,000, Syrah at 190,000, Garnacha Tinta at 163,000 and Pinot Noir at 112,000. The other five are missing from that table rather than rare. What matters when you buy is that the variety is set by the appellation rulebook more often than by the producer. Barolo must be Nebbiolo and nothing else. Brunello di Montalcino must be Sangiovese. Cahors must be at least 70% Cot, the grape sold as Malbec, in vineyard and blend. Côte-Rôtie must be at least 80% Syrah. The grape tells you which rulebook the bottle was made under. That is the first useful thing to know about it, and nowhere near the last.

What are the 11 main red wine grapes?

Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Pinot Noir, Syrah, Nebbiolo, Sangiovese, Tempranillo, Grenache, Malbec and Gamay. Here they are against the rule that fixes each one, and against the world plantings the OIV publishes.

Grape	World area in 2015	An appellation that fixes it	What that rulebook says
Cabernet Sauvignon	341,000 ha	Pauillac	One of six permitted varieties, no minimum stated
Merlot	266,000 ha	Pauillac, and Pomerol next door	Same six-variety list; at Pétrus the vineyard is Merlot alone
Tempranillo	231,000 ha	Ribera del Duero	Reds made from at least 75% Tempranillo
Syrah	190,000 ha	Côte-Rôtie	At least 80% of the holding's plantings
Grenache	163,000 ha	Châteauneuf-du-Pape	One of eighteen named varieties, no minimum
Pinot Noir	112,000 ha	Bourgogne rouge	The principal variety
Sangiovese	Under 100,000 ha, unlisted	Brunello di Montalcino	Sangiovese and nothing else
Nebbiolo	Under 100,000 ha, unlisted	Barolo	Nebbiolo and nothing else
Malbec	Under 100,000 ha, unlisted	Cahors	At least 70% of the plantings
Cabernet Franc	Under 100,000 ha, unlisted	Chinon	Principal variety, Cabernet Sauvignon capped at 10%
Gamay	Under 100,000 ha, unlisted	Beaujolais	The principal variety

The OIV's world table covers only varieties "with a total surface area above 100 000 ha", so the last five are absent from it rather than rare. Nor is eleven the whole picture. Kym Anderson and Signe Nelgen's Which Winegrape Varieties are Grown Where?, reviewed by José Vouillamoz in the Journal of Wine Economics, assembled statistics for 1,705 varieties from 53 countries. Robinson, Harding and Vouillamoz's Wine Grapes runs to 1,368. Eleven is what the saleroom trades.

Why is Cabernet Sauvignon planted more widely than any other red grape?

Because it travels. The OIV reports it as "second most-planted vine variety in 2015", behind the table grape Kyoho. It covers "an area of 341 000 ha, or 4% of the its large", and grows mainly in China, France, Chile, the United States, Australia, Spain, Argentina, Italy and South Africa.

It is also younger than its reputation suggests. John Bowers and Carole Meredith at UC Davis read 30 microsatellite markers. The parents are Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc, according to Bowers and Meredith. They read the cross as an accident rather than a breeding programme: "prior to the 17th century there were no reports of grape breeders deliberately making plant hybrids, and there would have been no practical reason to make such a cross".

In Bordeaux it is one name on a list rather than a mandate. The Pauillac cahier des charges permits "cabernet franc N, cabernet-sauvignon N, carmenère N, cot N (ou malbec), merlot N et petit verdot N", and sets no minimum for any of them. It then does something more revealing. It requires a minimum planting density of 7,000 vines per hectare, with rows no more than 1.50 metres apart. The law constrains how hard you make the vine work, not which grape you pick.

That distinction matters for the 61 red châteaux classified in 1855. The Conseil des Grands Crus Classés en 1855 records that "5 Châteaux are classed as Firsts, 14 as Seconds, 14 as Thirds, 10 as Fourths and 18 as Fifths". They are spread across Saint-Estèphe, Pauillac, Saint-Julien, Margaux and Haut-Médoc, plus one in the Graves. The classification ranked estates, not grapes. Work through the Bordeaux producer atlas and the Cabernet-dominant Left Bank is a soil story that the varieties follow, not the other way round.

Merlot: the grape Pomerol bet everything on

Merlot is the most planted red wine grape after Cabernet Sauvignon and the one most often mistaken for a softener. The OIV reports 266,000 hectares across 37 countries. It describes the grape as "early-budding and early-flowering" with "to over-ripen in warm climates", and notes it is "to a range of problems related to coulure30".

Its parentage was the hardest of the group to solve, and the 2009 paper that solved it is subtitled "discovery of the missing link". Boursiquot and colleagues used 55 nuclear and three chloroplast microsatellite loci, and published the answer in the Australian Journal of Grape and Wine Research. The mother is Magdeleine Noire des Charentes and the father is Cabernet Franc, according to Boursiquot and colleagues.

The commercial argument for Merlot is settled on the Pomerol plateau. The Wine Cellar Insider reports that "the 11.5 hectare Petrus vineyard is planted to 100% Merlot", the last Cabernet Franc vines having been pulled and replaced. It dates those clay soils at "at least 40 million years old". No classification governs Pomerol. Pétrus is priced on the strength of one grape on one clay lens, which is the cleanest illustration in wine that site outranks variety.

What does Cabernet Franc actually do?

It sets the aromatic frame, and in the Loire it does the job alone. The Chinon cahier des charges names "cépage principal: cabernet franc N", with Cabernet Sauvignon as the sole accessory. That accessory is capped at 10% of the holding's plantings, over a minimum density of 4,500 vines per hectare.

Its interest to a buyer is genealogical. Cabernet Franc is a parent of Cabernet Sauvignon, a parent of Merlot, and through them of a large share of everything classified in the Médoc. It is permitted in Pauillac alongside its own offspring. A blend that reads Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc is three generations of one family in a glass. That is worth remembering when someone tells you a Right Bank blend and a Left Bank blend are unrelated styles.

Why does one Pinot Noir rulebook cover a village wine and a grand cru?

Because the law fixes the grape and leaves everything that sets the price to the site. The Bourgogne cahier des charges names "cépage principal: pinot noir N". It then allows Chardonnay, Pinot Blanc and Pinot Gris as accessories intermixed in the vines, up to 15% of a parcel, plus César in the Yonne alone. Nothing in that text distinguishes one hillside from the next.

The OIV reports 112,000 hectares in 2015 and traces Pinot Noir to 14th-century Burgundy. It is blunt about the grape's limits: it is early-budding and so "sensitive to early spring frosts", "unsuitable for growth on clay and humid soils", and yields 3 to 9 tonnes per hectare in Burgundy.

It is also a prolific parent. The OIV notes that crossings between Pinot Noir and Gouais Blanc have produced 21 grape varieties grown in France, Chardonnay among them. When you bid on Romanée-Conti you are buying a parcel, a producer and a vintage. The grape is the one variable that does not move.

Syrah: 80% minimum, and a white grape in the vat

Syrah is a Rhône native with a documented cross behind it and a hard proportional rule in front of it. The OIV reports 190,000 hectares in 2015 across 31 countries. It describes the grape as the result of crossing the Mondeuse Blanche (from Savoie) and Dureza (from the Ardèche) grape varieties, with late budburst, low fertility and yields of 3 to 8 tonnes per hectare.

Côte-Rôtie is where the law gets specific. The 2023 cahier des charges requires that "la proportion du cépage syrah N est supérieure ou égale à 80% de l'encépagement de l'exploitation". It permits Viognier only "en mélange de plants dans les parcelles plantées en cépage syrah N", to a limit of 20% of the vines. The white grape is not blended in afterwards. It is interplanted and picked with the Syrah, which is why co-fermentation on the northern Rhône is a planting decision made a generation earlier.

Why does Barolo sit for 38 months before it can be sold?

Because the disciplinare says so, and it says so for a grape that is undrinkable young. Article 2 of the Barolo DOCG production code requires wines "ottenuti da uve provenienti dai vigneti composti esclusivamente dal vitigno Nebbiolo". Article 5 sets a minimum ageing of 38 months, of which 18 in wood, counted from 1 November of the harvest year. Riserva runs to 62 months, still with 18 in wood.

That is a legal floor on working capital. Every producer carries more than three years of cellar cost before a case can leave, and the release date is set by decree rather than by demand. Producers who hold longer still, Giacomo Conterno among them, extend that gap by choice on top of the rule. The Piemonte producer atlas is worth reading as a map of release schedules as much as of vineyards.

Sangiovese: 80%, 90% or all of it

One grape, three different legal thresholds inside Tuscany. Brunello di Montalcino must come from vineyards "composti, nell'ambito aziendale, esclusivamente dal vitigno Sangiovese", with at least 24 months in oak of any size and four months in bottle. It cannot be sold before 1 January following the end of five years counted from the harvest. Riserva adds a year, and six months in bottle.

Chianti Classico is looser and getting tighter. The Consorzio specifies, in its 2023 production code, Chianti Classico and its Riserva at "Sangiovese, from 80% up to 100%", with up to 20% of other Tuscan red varieties. Gran Selezione runs at "Sangiovese, from 90% up to 100%", with the balance drawn from a closed list of eight: Colorino, Canaiolo, Ciliegiolo, Mammolo, Pugnitello, Malvasia Nera, Foglia Tonda and Sanforte.

Its own pedigree is unsettled, and you should know that before anyone sells you a heritage story. Vouillamoz and colleagues tested 50 microsatellites for VITIS in 2007. Sangiovese is a progeny of Ciliegiolo and Calabrese di Montenuovo, "an obscure grapevine from Campania", according to Vouillamoz and colleagues. SNP genotyping reversed it, according to D'Onofrio and colleagues in Frontiers in Plant Science: that pedigree was "invalidated by our results", and Ciliegiolo is instead "confirmed as an offspring of “Sangiovese” and “Moscato violetto". They propose Strinto porcino and a relative of Visparola as the likelier parents, and say the finding still needs confirming.

Tempranillo: one grape under a shelf of other names

Tempranillo is the fifth most cultivated variety in the world at 231,000 hectares, and it barely leaves home. The OIV notes it is "present in 17 countries but 88% of its cultivated Airen is usually grown". It has early budburst, early ripening and a short growth cycle, and gives "deeply coloured wines, with a high alcohol content from Burgundy. In" in warm sites.

It also travels under aliases that appear on labels as though they were separate grapes. The OIV lists Tinto Fino, Tinta del País, Tinta de Toro, Ull de Llebre, Cencibel, Aragonez and Tinta Roriz among them.

Two rulebooks matter. Ribera del Duero's pliego de condiciones permits Tempranillo, Cabernet Sauvignon, Garnacha Tinta, Malbec, Merlot and Albillo Mayor. It names Tempranillo the principal variety for reds, and requires them to be made "con un 75%, como mínimo, de la variedad Tempranillo o Tinto Fino o Tinta del País". Its Gran Reserva mention demands 60 months of ageing with at least 24 in oak barrels of no more than 330 litres. Vega Sicilia works inside that frame. Sixty months is the floor its Único has to clear, and a floor tells you nothing about what a producer chooses to do above it.

Rioja runs a wider palette. The Consejo Regulador authorises five red varieties, Tempranillo, Garnacha Tinta, Graciano, Mazuelo and Maturana Tinta, and says Tempranillo "occupies most of the plantation". Between two Rioja estates, the varietal share is the smallest of the differences.

Grenache: one name on a list of eighteen

Grenache is the grape that makes southern blends work, and Châteauneuf-du-Pape is where its supporting cast is largest. The appellation's cahier des charges names eighteen varieties for red and white together: bourboulenc B, brun argenté N, cinsaut N, clairette B, clairette rose Rs, counoise N, grenache blanc B, grenache gris G, grenache N, mourvèdre N, muscardin N, picardan B, piquepoul blanc B, piquepoul gris G, piquepoul noir N, roussanne B, syrah N and terret noir N. There is no minimum for any of them.

The decree does single Grenache out in one place. Grapes only count as ripe at 216 grams of sugar per litre of must for Grenache N, against 207 for the other black varieties, on top of a 12.5% minimum natural alcohol and a 35 hectolitre per hectare yield. The OIV explains why that bar sits higher. Garnacha Tinta is extremely drought resistant, and it produces "wines, with a high alcohol content". It covered 163,000 hectares in 2015, with France and Spain accounting for 87% of its world vineyard area.

Why did Malbec leave Bordeaux and come back as Argentina's?

Because it is still legal in Bordeaux and no longer central there, while a single South American province now holds most of the world's plantings. Malbec appears in the Pauillac list as "cot N (ou malbec)", one of six permitted varieties. In Cahors it is the appellation. The decree names "cépage principal: cot N (également appelé malbec)", with Merlot and Tannat as accessories. It requires that "la proportion du cépage cot N est supérieure ou égale à 70 % de l'encépagement".

Argentina rewrote the scale. Malbec plantings grew 22% between 2014 and 2023 to 46,941 hectares, according to Observatorio Vitivinícola Argentino, citing the Instituto Nacional de Vitivinicultura. That share rose from 17% of all planted vineyard hectares to 23%, with 84% of that area in Mendoza.

Its pedigree came from the same 2009 study that solved Merlot: Cot is the offspring of Magdeleine Noire des Charentes and Prunelard, which makes Malbec and Merlot half-siblings through the same mother. Producers such as Catena Zapata built the altitude argument on top of that inheritance, and the Mendoza producer atlas is the fastest way to see how vertically that region is now organised.

Why does Burgundy allow Gamay only by exception?

Because the Bourgogne rulebook carves out the ten Beaujolais crus by name and admits Gamay nowhere else. The AOC Bourgogne cahier des charges lists Pinot Noir as the principal red variety, then permits Gamay N only "pour les seuls vins issus des aires parcellaires délimitées des appellations d'origine contrôlées « Brouilly », « Chénas », « Chiroubles », « Côtes de Brouilly », « Fleurie », « Juliénas », « Morgon », « Moulin-à-Vent », « Régnié », « Saint- Amour", capped at 30% of the plantings. A named exception for ten crus is a stronger endorsement than a general permission.

In Beaujolais itself Gamay is the principal variety. Aligoté, Chardonnay, Melon, Pinot Gris and Pinot Noir are accessories permitted only intermixed in the vines, to 15% of a parcel between them. The teinturier strains Gamay de Bouze and Gamay de Chaudenay are capped at 10% of the holding's plantings, together or separately. Inter Beaujolais reports 13,500 hectares of vines claimed across the 12 Beaujolais AOCs, "practically all planted with gamay (97%)".

For a buyer that concentration is the point. A cru Beaujolais is a single-variety wine from a named hill, which removes blend composition from the list of things that can explain a price gap. Set two crus side by side in the Burgundy producer atlas and what is left to compare is site, producer and vintage.

Does the grape set the price, or the site?

The site. That is why the appellation rules above fix the grape in a line or two and then spend most of their length on density, pruning, yield and ageing.

The test is simple. Pétrus and a Pomerol neighbour are both Merlot on the same plateau. Every Barolo in a given vintage is Nebbiolo grown inside eleven communes. Every Brunello is Sangiovese. Where the grape is held constant by law, the whole price spread has to be explained by something else, and that something else is what we track.

The market index shows the aggregate, and what that aggregate hides is that a variety-level average is a summary of buildings, not of grapes.

Which red grapes are worth ageing, and for how long?

The legal minimums give you a floor, and they vary by an order of magnitude. Barolo needs 38 months. Brunello cannot be sold until five years have run from the harvest. Ribera del Duero Gran Reserva needs 60 months. The Beaujolais and Bourgogne cahiers set no ageing period at all.

A floor is not a drinking window. The rules tell you what a producer must do before selling, not what the wine does in your cellar afterwards, and they say nothing about a particular vintage in a particular bottle format.

If the bottle is already in your cellar, drink-now answers the question for that wine and vintage rather than for the variety in general.

Read the grape, then read the score

Knowing that Barolo is Nebbiolo narrows the field to several thousand wines. It does not tell you which of them is worth the money this month.

Every wine on this site carries a score that is 40% critic and 60% CellarTracker. It moves when the drinkers who opened the bottle disagree with the panel that tasted it young. That disagreement is worth watching hardest on the grapes with long legal ageing, because the critic's number was set years before the wine reached a shelf. The methodology sets out how the two halves are combined and what we exclude.

Join the newsletter and you will get the wines whose score moved this week, with the variety, the appellation rule and the current market beside it. You can then judge whether the price has caught up with the bottle.