🍇 Villard Blanc

Villard Blanc is a white wine grape, a hybrid bred in France. The VIVC catalogue classes it as an interspecific cross, combining the European vine with other Vitis species. It was bred by the private breeder Bertille Seyve-Villard, and its breeding number is Seyve-Villard 12-375.

The breeder recorded Seibel 6468 and Seibel 6905 as the parents, but by DNA markers the second parent is a different one, Subereux. The catalogue lists 11 synonyms, among them SV 12-375 and Eger 2. According to VIVC it is purely a wine grape.

The story of Villard Blanc is one of rise and fall. France had 19,199 ha of it in 1958 and 21,397 ha in 1968. Then the area shrank rapidly: 2,776 ha in 1988, 1,129 ha in 1998 and only 349 ha in 2008. VIVC also records small plantings in Brazil, 380 ha in 1994.

The variety has left a clear mark on breeding, though. More than twenty grapes descend from it, among them Orion, Phoenix, Bianca and Landot Noir. And in the Republic of Moldova it was crossed with Guzal Kara: this is how, in 1961, the table grape Moldova appeared, now the country's most widespread table grape.

Why it matters to you. Villard Blanc shows how a hybrid can vanish from vineyards yet live on in its offspring. White wine from it is rare; if the grape is named on a bottle of EU wine, it makes up at least 85 % of it. Like most whites, it is served at 4–10 °C.