🍇 Breval Negro

Breval Negro is an old Spanish table grape with red berries. Its parents are unknown, but genetic studies have shown that it is itself a parent of several varieties. Among those that descend from Breval Negro are the Spanish wine grape Rojal Tinta, the French table grape Danugue and the Spanish Torralba and Quiebratinajas.

According to VIVC, the variety has 2 synonyms, Breval and Moscatel negra, and its berries develop seeds. The catalogue gives no full pedigree but records parent–offspring relationships. Samples of Breval Negro are kept in only 2 collections. VIVC presents Danugue and Rojal Tinta as crosses of Breval Negro with an unknown second parent, and both pedigrees were established with DNA markers.

A key role was played by the study of Laucou and co-authors (PLoS ONE, 2018), who genotyped 783 varieties with 10207 SNP markers. The authors found 10 new parent–offspring trios, mostly among Spanish varieties, and named Breval Negro as an example of a variety not included in earlier such studies. According to their data, Torralba and Ferral (Uvallon) are Hebén × Breval Negro, and Quiebratinajas is Castellana Blanca × Breval Negro. The 7 parent–offspring pairs the authors found for Breval Negro also include Danugue, Rojal Tinta, Moré and Achladi.

Why it matters to you. If a description of Rojal Tinta or Danugue says that one parent is unknown, note that geneticists have already identified one of them: it is Breval Negro. So this little-known table grape, now kept in only two collections, helps explain the origin of several wine and table varieties of Spain and France.