White grape
Chasselas
How to read this
Capitals mark the stressed syllable. The recording is the reference.
Chasselas, a white grape grown above all for eating, appears in the Gironde as a rare wine vine in 1816, a grafted vine at Langoiran in 1881 and a profitable table grape in 1893.
Chasselas is a white grape grown above all for the table. M. du Puits de Maconex, a grower at Gradignan, in his Guide du propriétaire de vigne (1850), put the Chasselas doré first among table grapes in France, “the best of all in the center and the north.” Which Chasselas the Gironde texts mean is never stated, so the identity rests on the name and is likely. André Jullien, the Paris wine merchant whose Topographie de tous les vignobles connus first appeared in 1816, found the chasselas among the vines of the Gironde and wrote that it was rare in the department.
Its Gironde record follows 2 lines. As a wine vine, it was grafted onto American roots at the Domaine du Vallier at Langoiran with Cabernet, Malbec, and Sémillon, as the report of the 1881 phylloxera congress in Bordeaux records, and the guide of Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, lists it among the vines of the Bassin d’Arcachon from 1893 to 1922. As fruit, the 1893 edition says the Chasselas was much grown in the Gironde for the table, with the Malvoisie and the Muscat blanc, and that some owners drew “a great profit” from them.
Oldest record in my library: “Chasselas”, 1785, in Jean-Baptiste de Secondat, Mémoire sur la culture des vignes de la Guienne (of the Paris region and Fontainebleau); in the Gironde, André Jullien, Topographie de tous les vignobles connus, 1816 (rare in the department)
The family
Parents unknown.
Chasselas
The names
Old names: Blanquette (open), Cioutat (open)
In today’s rules
Not named in the rules of any Bordeaux appellation today.
In the books
“the doutas and the chasselas. These last two are rare in the department.”
le doutas et le chasselas. Ces deux derniers sont rares dans le département.
“as well as the plantings of French vines grafted onto American roots, Cabernet, Malbec, Merlau, Petit-Bouschet, Sémillon blanc, Chasselas, and others, are more recent”
ainsi que les plantations en cépages français greffés sur américains, Cabernet, Malbec, Merlau, Petit-Bouschet, Sémillon blanc, Chasselas et autres sont plus récentes
“Much grown as table grapes in the Gironde are the Chasselas, the Malvoisie, the Muscat blanc, and its pink variety, from which some owners draw a great profit.”
On cultive beaucoup comme raisins de table dans la Gironde le Chasselas , la Malvoisie , le Muscat blanc et sa variété rose dont certains propriétaires tirent un grand profit .
“the folle-rouge, the pignon, the cahors, the aramon, the fer, the chasselas.”
la folle - rouge , le pignon , le cahors , l'aramon , le fer , le chasselas .
Sources
- M. du Puits de Maconex, Guide du propriétaire de vigne, Bordeaux, P. Chaumas, 1850 (bound with A. Joubert, Culture de la vigne dans le Médoc, in the library copy), 'Vignes cultivées pour raisins de table'
- André Jullien, Topographie de tous les vignobles connus, 1st ed., 1816, Gironde
- Congrès international phylloxérique de Bordeaux, Compte rendu général du Congrès international phylloxérique de Bordeaux (Gironde), du 9 au 16 octobre 1881, 1881, 'Les vignes américaines, Domaine du Vallier, Langoiran'
- Charles Cocks & Édouard Féret, Bordeaux et ses vins classés par ordre de mérite, 6th ed., 1893, Bassin d'Arcachon; 'Cépages de vignes blanches', p. 27
- Charles Cocks & Édouard Féret, Bordeaux et ses vins classés par ordre de mérite, 9th ed., 1922, Bassin d'Arcachon
- Jean-Baptiste de Secondat, Mémoires sur l’histoire naturelle du chêne […], sur la culture de la vigne, et sur le vin de la Guienne, Paris, De Bure fils aîné, 1785
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