One of the few varieties which the French refer to as teinturier, grapes with red coloured flesh, Alicante Bouschet is the only teinturier that belongs to the Vitis vinifera family. The variety ripens early, producing high yields, often with alcohol levels around 12%. Wines tend to lack character and complexity, though it can produce good rosé styles and the deeply coloured flesh make it an ideal blending partner. Vines are prone to diseases like anthracnose and downy mildew.
With bright red free-run juice, Alicante Bouschet is often used to add colour, depth and roundness to lighter-bodied wines. Growers in California found the grape's pulp was so fleshy that fermentable juice could still be retrieved after the third pressing. Most grapes only produce juice from the free run (before pressing), first or second pressings.
Alicante Bouschet was developed in France in 1866 by Henri Bouschet by crossing Grenache with Petit Bouschet (which was, in turn, a cross between Aramon and Teinturier du Cher developed by his father). Alicante is one of the many synonyms for Grenache, and is the name of a city and its surrounding wine region on Spain’s Mediterranean coast. Aramon was the most widely planted grape in France, due to high productivity and resistance to powdery mildew. The wine, however, is lightly coloured, lacking in flavour, and low in alcohol.
High yields and low maintenance made Alicante Bouschet popular with French growers after the Phylloxera epidemic, and by the end of the 19th century there were plantings in Bordeaux, Burgundy and the Loire Valley. At the turn of the 21st century, Alicante Bouschet was the twelfth most planted red grape in France particularly in Languedoc, Provence and Cognac, but in some areas its tendency to over crop and the grape's acidity caused more problems than they were worth.
Widely planted in California during Prohibition, the variety was often railed to the East Coast where it was popular with home winemakers since its thick skin protected the grapes in transit. New York's Pennsylvania Station had auction rooms where grapes were sold and in 1928 enough grapes to make 2 million gallons of wine was sold to a single buyer. Alicante Bouschet’s intense colour meant wines could be diluted to double the normal output without affecting the appearance. Plantings reached 30,000 acres in the 1940s, but have since declined.
Today, Alicante Bouschet is falling from favour but can still be found in Spain (as Garnacha Tintorera), Corsica, Italy, Algeria, Israel, South Africa, and Portugal's Alentejo region where it is used to produce port and is prized for its colour, fruitiness and tannin levels. In Chile it is blended with Cabernet Sauvignon and used for varietal wines. In California the grape still grows in Napa and Sonoma.
In Australia it is relatively rare, though there are plantings in the Barossa and in north-east Victoria. Rockford wines made from the variety are labelled Alicante Bouchet (no s in the Bouschet) and Rockford proprietor Robert O’Callaghan is disinclined to revert to the correct spelling since adding the missing letter won’t make it taste any better. The Rockford version is a fresh, fruity summer drinking style. The grape’s red flesh produces a vividly coloured rosé without skin contact that would introduce tannin into the mix.
