Red grape

Fer

FAIR
How to read this

Capitals mark the stressed syllable. The French r comes from the back of the throat. The recording is the reference.

Fer, or Fer Servadou, is a black French grape proposed in 2009 as a parent of Gros Cabernet, which would make it a grandparent of Castets; a 2018 DNA study found that link poorly supported.

Fer, also called Fer Servadou, Braucol, and Mansois, is a black grape from France (VIVC passport 4085), with no parents on record. Jean-Michel Boursiquot and colleagues proposed it in 2009 as a parent of Gros Cabernet, with Hondarribi Beltza; Wine Grapes (2012) follows it in its pedigree diagram, and Olivier Geffroy and colleagues restated it in 2019. But a 2018 SNP study by Valérie Laucou and colleagues found that parentage poorly supported, and VIVC gives Gros Cabernet’s second parent as unknown, so the link is proposed and doubtful. If it holds, Fer is a grandparent of Castets, a grape of the Bordeaux rules since 2021. Fer now grows in the Médoc as a trial vine: in a 2025 study by Marc Plantevin and colleagues, Fer Servadou from the La Tour Carnet 2050 experimental vineyard, added at 10% or 30% to a classic Bordeaux blend, slightly lowered its typicity score for senior expert tasters, within a narrow range; the authors conclude that Bordeaux typicity was never drastically affected.

Its wine knew the road to Bordeaux long ago. In an 1860 article, the Midi grower Cazalis-Allut recalled writing in 1852 that owners of Fer-Servadou in departments next to the Gironde “find in Bordeaux the outlet for the wine of this vine, because of its great likeness to the wines of the Médoc” («trouvent à Bordeaux le débouché du vin produit par ce cépage, à cause de sa grande analogie avec les vins du Médoc»). Whether Fer grew in old Gironde vineyards is open. Cocks and Féret recorded a “Fer” at Macau and in the Carbon-Blanc canton in 1874; it is likely Béquignol Noir, but VIVC files several of the same local names under Fer.

Oldest record in my library: M. Chevreul, report on Count Odart’s Ampélographie, 1846 (“le fer-servadou”)

The family

Parents unknown.

Fer

Gros Cabernet proposed

  • Boursiquot et al. 2009, AJGWR 15:144-155, Table 2 (proposed); Robinson, Harding & Vouillamoz, Wine Grapes (2012), pedigree diagram; found poorly supported with SNPs by Laucou et al. 2018, PLoS ONE 13:e0192540; VIVC 22758 gives the second parent as unknown

The discovery: In 2025, Plantevin and colleagues found that Fer Servadou, at 10% or 30%, slightly lowered the typicity of a classic Bordeaux blend for senior expert tasters, within what they call a tight continuum.

The names

Other names in VIVC: Arrouya, Bequignol, Bordelais, Bourdales, Braucol, Brocol, Camerouge, Chalosse Noire, Chausset, Fer Noir, Fer Servadou, Folle Rouge, Here, Herrant.

Old names: Béquignol (open), Fer (open), Here ou tête noire (open), Panereuil (open), Petit-Fer (open)

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 4085, accessed October 2026
  • Röckel et al. (2026): Vitis International Variety Catalogue, www.vivc.de, passport id 22758, accessed October 2026 (Gros Cabernet: second parent unknown)
  • Robinson, Harding & Vouillamoz, Wine Grapes (2012), pedigree diagrams
  • Olivier Geffroy, Marco Li Calzi, Kasper Ibfelt, Olivier Yobrégat, Carole Feilhès & Thierry Dufourcq (2019), 'Using common viticultural practices to modulate the rotundone and 3-isobutyl-2-methoxypyrazine composition of Vitis vinifera L. cv. Fer red wines...', https://ut3-toulouseinp.hal.science/hal-04994400v1
  • Marc Plantevin, Sophie Tempère, Cécile Thibon, Lucile Dijkstra, Julien Lecourt, Agnès Destrac-Irvine & Cornelis van Leeuwen (2025), 'No major impact of new grape varieties on Bordeaux wine typicity: expert assessments in blind and non-blind tastings', OENO One, doi 10.20870/oeno-one.2025.59.1.8389
  • Marc Plantevin, L'exploration de la diversité variétale en production viticole à fin d'adaptation au changement climatique, PhD thesis 2025, https://theses.hal.science/tel-04988263v1 (wines of the 26 red varieties from the La Tour Carnet 2050 plot)
  • Œuvre agricole de Cazalis-Allut, 1865, article XLIV 'Observations sur le vin provenant des cépages cultivés sous le nom de Fer-Servadou, dans plusieurs départements voisins de celui de la Gironde' (published 1860), pp. 304-305
  • Rapport de M. Chevreul sur l'ouvrage intitulé Ampélographie... par le comte Odart, 1846, https://archive.org/details/bnf-bpt6k6545096z
  • Charles Cocks (rev. Édouard Féret), Bordeaux et ses vins, 3rd ed., 1874, p. 21; identity as in the Béquignol Noir pack (likely)
  • Arrêtés of March 22, 2021 homologating the cahiers des charges of AOC Bordeaux and Bordeaux supérieur (JORF March 30, 2021), as recorded in the Castets, Arinarnoa and Marselan packs
  • Jean-Michel Boursiquot et al., 'Parentage of Merlot and related winegrape cultivars of southwestern France: discovery of the missing link', Australian Journal of Grape and Wine Research 15:144-155, 2009, Table 2
  • Valérie Laucou et al., 'Extended diversity analysis of cultivated grapevine Vitis vinifera with 10K genome-wide SNPs', PLoS ONE 13:e0192540, 2018, p. 4 (Gros Cabernet's putative parentage 'poorly supported' with SNPs)
  • Röckel et al. (2026): Vitis International Variety Catalogue, www.vivc.de, accessed October 2026

Every grape

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