🍇 Çavuş Pembe

Çavuş Pembe is an old table grape variety with pink berries, which VIVC traces to Turkey. Despite its name, it is not a pink form of white Çavuş but its offspring: DNA markers have shown that its parents are Çavuş and Pehlivan Kara. In Romania it is known as Ceauș roz, in Turkey as Çavuş pembe.

VIVC records 36 synonyms, among them the Romanian Razachie roșie, the Greek Tsaousi kokkino, the French Chaouch rose and several versions of the name Rozaki. The variety has female flowers, its berries contain seeds, and samples are kept in 25 collections.

In 2017 the journal Vitis published a study of old Romanian varieties that describes a Ceauș roz accession — a table grape with pink berries, which ampelographers had already described in 1959. Its flowers look hermaphrodite, with stamens bent outwards, but their pollen is sterile, so they are functionally female. As a result the crop depends on the weather during flowering and on pollinating vines nearby that flower at the same time. The authors see unreliable yields as the main reason why interest in such varieties faded. The variety was classed as a neglected local variety at risk of extinction, and DNA analysis confirmed a parent–offspring link between the white and pink Çavuş.

Why it matters to you. Anyone planting Çavuş Pembe needs to think about a pollinator: without a neighbouring vine with viable pollen that flowers at the same time, the crop will be unreliable. And the name Rozaki on a crate does not guarantee this variety — VIVC also lists it among the synonyms of other varieties, such as the white Afus Ali and the red Turkish Razaki Kırmızı.