Red grape

Dureza

dew-ray-ZAH
How to read this

Capitals mark the stressed syllable. “ew” is “ee” said with rounded lips. The French r comes from the back of the throat. The recording is the reference.

Dureza is a black grape of the Ardèche that DNA markers show to be a parent of Syrah, with Mondeuse Blanche; Syrah was once planted in the Gironde.

Dureza is a black grape from France (VIVC passport 22231), with no parents on record. José Vouillamoz and his co-author Grando placed it in the Ardèche in a 2006 paper, which also found Dureza and Teroldego, a grape of northern Italy, to be full siblings. DNA markers show that Syrah is a cross of Mondeuse Blanche and Dureza: John Bowers and colleagues proposed the pair in 2000, and Lacombe and colleagues and VIVC confirm it. Syrah is a Bordeaux grape of the past. Auguste Petit-Lafitte wrote in La vigne dans le Bordelais (1868) of “the Sirrha, or Hermitage vine, introduced into the Médoc by M. Destournel” («le Sirrha , ou plant de l'Hermitage , introduit en Médoc par M. Destournel»).

A name ties Dureza closer still. VIVC lists “Serine” among Dureza’s other names, and the same name among Syrah’s. In 1850 M. du Puits de Maconex, a grower at Gradignan, wrote in his Guide du propriétaire de vigne of “the Serine, which we brought from the banks of the Rhône to Gradignan” («La Serine, que nous avons introduite des bords du Rhône, à Gradignan»), a vine he could still tell at first sight among the many vines of the Gironde. That vine is most likely Syrah, and he also names a “sira” beside it. With the name shared, whether Dureza ever grew at Gradignan is open.

Oldest record in my library: J. E. Bowers and colleagues, Acta Horticulturae 528, 2000

The family

Parents unknown.

Dureza

Syrah shown by DNA markers

  • Bowers et al. 2000, Acta Hort. 528:129-132; Lacombe et al. 2013; VIVC 11748

The discovery: In 2000, Bowers and colleagues named Dureza and Mondeuse Blanche as the parents of Syrah, later confirmed by DNA markers.

In today’s rules

Not named in the rules of any Bordeaux appellation today.

Sources

  • Röckel et al. (2026): Vitis International Variety Catalogue, www.vivc.de, passport id 22231 (Dureza: no pedigree; synonyms DURE, DURET, DUREZZA, PETIT DURET, PETITE DURET, SERENE, SERINE), read October 12, 2026, accessed October 2026
  • Röckel et al. (2026): Vitis International Variety Catalogue, www.vivc.de, passport id 11748, accessed October 2026 (Syrah: Mondeuse Blanche x Dureza by markers; SERINE among the synonyms)
  • Bowers, J. E., Siret, R., Meredith, C. P., This, P. & Boursiquot, J.-M. (2000), 'A single pair of parents proposed for a group of grapevine varieties in northeastern France', Acta Horticulturae 528:129-132
  • Lacombe, T. et al. (2013), 'Large-scale parentage analysis in an extended set of grapevine cultivars (Vitis vinifera L.)', Theoretical and Applied Genetics 126 (2):401-414
  • Vouillamoz, J. F. & Grando, M. S. (2006), 'Genealogy of wine grape cultivars: Pinot is related to Syrah', Heredity, https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.hdy.6800842
  • Auguste Petit-Lafitte, La vigne dans le Bordelais, 1868
  • 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)
  • Bordeaux Reviews, Old names
  • Röckel et al. (2026): Vitis International Variety Catalogue, www.vivc.de, accessed October 2026

Every grape

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