🍇 Chelois

Chelois is a black-skinned interspecific hybrid wine grape bred by Albert Seibel in France and also known as Seibel 10878. The International Variety Catalogue VIVC (Julius Kühn-Institut) lists it as a Vitis interspecific crossing with black (noir) berry skin, bred by Albert Seibel, with France as the country of origin. VIVC gives the pedigree as Seibel 5163 × Seibel 5593 and the synonyms S 10878, S-10-878 and Seibel 10878; it lists no crossing year.

The USDA National Plant Germplasm System (GRIN-Global) holds a record for the cultivar as Chelois (Seibel 10878), accession GVIT 456, with the same pedigree, Seibel 5163 × Seibel 5593. The record states that the material was donated from New York by Bruce I. Reisch of Cornell University in March 1987. It is marked as a historic record: the accession no longer exists and cannot be requested.

The GRIN record describes a vigorous vine with medium-large clusters and average budbreak, maturing early to mid-season. It rates the variety as susceptible to fungal disease and moderately winter hardy, and notes that the material was tested on standard indicators and found free of leaf roll and of several listed viruses, among them fanleaf, asteroid mosaic and Pierce's disease.