🍇 Aramon

Aramon (Aramon noir) is a red wine variety from the south of France that in the 19th and 20th centuries gave huge yields of simple wine. According to VIVC, its area in France fell from 150,230 ha in 1958 to 3,304 ha in 2008. Today it is known mainly as the parent of other varieties and rootstocks.

According to VIVC, DNA markers point to Ouliven and Heunisch Weiss (another name is Gouais blanc) as parents; Wikipedia names only Gouais blanc. The variety has black berries and 47 synonyms, and VIVC lists it as both a wine and a table variety. The French variety catalogue includes Aramon N, as well as the white and grey forms, Aramon blanc and Aramon gris.

Aramon had many offspring: VIVC has about 30 entries. In 1829 Louis Bouschet crossed it with Teinturier du Cher and obtained Petit Bouschet, the basis of the “dyer” red varieties. In 1879 Victor Ganzin crossed Aramon with Vitis rupestris, producing the rootstock Ganzin 1. Millardet and Grasset used Aramon in crosses with American species, and Monerac is Aramon × Grenache.

Aramon was once called “the vine of the masses”: according to VIVC, France had 124,052 ha of it in 1968, 63,487 ha in 1979, 11,943 ha in 1998 and 4,429 ha in 2006. According to Wikipedia, in mass plantings it could yield up to 400 hl/ha, and the wine was very pale and of little character; the frosts of 1956 and 1963 hit it especially hard, and Algerian Carignan wines had more colour, alcohol and concentration.

Why it matters to you. Aramon is an example of a variety changed by the demand for quality instead of quantity. If Aramon appears in the pedigree of a variety or rootstock, that is breeding history, not a sign of modern wine.