카리냥 (Carignan)
프랑스에서 가장 넓은 재배면적을 가졌으며 프랑스 남쪽지역 Vin de table 급인 테이블 와인 양조에 쓰인다.
또한 지중해 연안지방과 스페인에서 재배된다. 그밖에 칠레에서는 4번째로 많이 재배되는 레드 품종으로 산티아고 중심의 Central Vally에 넓고 분포한다.
늦게 익는 포도종이라 따뜻한 태양이 많이 필요하기 때문에 남부지방에서 많이 자라며 당도가 높아 높은 알코올을 함유할수 있으며 야생적임/색상은 검붉은 편이다.
이 품종으로 와인의 만들경우 과실향, 약간의 스파이시한 맛, 떫은 맛이 배어 나온다. 탄닌 함량이 많고 힘차서 섬세한 다른 품종(그르나슈, 시라, 무르베드르) 특히 쌩쏘품종과 블렌딩에 사용된다.
단위면적 당 수확량은 적다.
Carignane
You're like an aging rebellious rock star. No one can question your work ethic, Grampa, but possibly your temperament hasn't mellowed. As the leader of the Central Valley ensemble, you rarely find time to pursue solo projects. Undeniably, you're a workaholic; nobody was involved in as many smashing productions as you, during your heyday in the late 1970s.
Crowds enjoy your colorful costumes and raspy tannic edge, but your penchant for the jug-bunch has gotten you in trouble more than a few times. Your unwillingness to play outside of warm dry venues adds to your down-home reputation, but seriously limits your marketability in the up-market yuppie world of today. For the most part, you continue to play the Central Valley bar scene. It’s a shame we haven’t had many opportunities to see how you perform on the broader stages of America. You wouldn't be the first geriatric rocker to make a comeback in a new group with a "Euro-image".
Thriving in warm climates, Carignan was until the late 1970s, the most widely-planted red variety in California. Today, this high-yielding, thick-skinned grape is still important for the blended jug wines of California’s hot, dry Central Valley, and in France’s Midi, where it is usually the main component in basic ‘vin de tables’.
Carignan is one of the world’s most prolific wine varieties. In both the Golden State and in its home territory (the Mediterranean coastal regions of Spain and France), its role has been similar – to produce oceans of simple, everyday wine. Hailing from Aragon, Spain, this grape is capable of deeply-colored, extracted and tannic wines of considerable alcohol. It is a late-budder and does not ripen until late in the season. Highly prone to mildew disease, it requires long, dry growing conditions.
Carignan rarely enjoys a marquee presence on a label as a varietal wine. Instead, its principal use is as a blending component with other, more anemic, hot-climate varieties, like Grenache and Cinsault, which typically lack the deep pigment and extract which Carignan brings to the blend.