Red grape
Hondarribi Beltza
How to read this
Capitals mark the stressed syllable. “ohn” is a nasal vowel: say it through the nose, with no n. The French r comes from the back of the throat. The recording is the reference.
Hondarribi Beltza is a black Basque grape, a DNA-confirmed parent of Gros Cabernet and so a grandparent of Castets; a proposed link makes it close kin of Cabernet Franc.
Hondarribi Beltza is a black grape of Spain’s Basque Country, filed in VIVC under the prime name Ondarrabi Beltza (passport 8768). In 2008 Rafael Ocete and colleagues counted it, with Hondarrabi Zuri, among the cultivated vines of the Basque coast. DNA markers show that it is a parent of Gros Cabernet, as VIVC records from Boursiquot and colleagues (2009) and Lacombe and colleagues (2013). Gros Cabernet is in turn a confirmed parent of Castets, the old vine of the Saint-Macaire canton admitted into AOC Bordeaux and Bordeaux Supérieur on March 22, 2021, and a proposed parent of Carmenère.
Its other tie runs to Cabernet Franc. Wine Grapes (2012) draws Hondarribi Beltza as an offspring of Cabernet Franc and an unknown partner, probably extinct, and says the inverse is possible: the link is proposed and its direction open. That closeness, with Morenoa, is one reason José Vouillamoz and others place Cabernet Franc’s origins in the Basque Country. VIVC even lists “Burdigala”, the Latin name of Bordeaux, among Hondarribi Beltza’s other names. The Gironde books record no vineyard of it.
Oldest record in my library: “Ondarrabi Beltza”, 2000, in K. M. Sefc and colleagues, study of microsatellite variability in grape cultivars from different European regions; Rafael Ocete and colleagues, study of wild and cultivated vines in the Basque region of Spain and France, 2008
The family
- Robinson, Harding & Vouillamoz, Wine Grapes (2012), pedigree diagram; no pedigree on VIVC 8768; inverse possible
- Boursiquot et al. 2009 (as 'Txakoli'); Lacombe et al. 2013; VIVC 22758 (as Ondarrabi Beltza)
The discovery: In 2009, Boursiquot and colleagues, as VIVC cites them, found Hondarribi Beltza, which they call Txakoli, to be a parent of Gros Cabernet.
The names
Other names in VIVC: Burdigala, Cruchen Negre, Hondarrabi Beltza, Hondarribi Beltza.
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 8768, accessed October 2026
- Röckel et al. (2026): Vitis International Variety Catalogue, www.vivc.de, passport id 22758, accessed October 2026 (Gros Cabernet: one parent by markers, Ondarrabi Beltza, second parent unknown)
- Röckel et al. (2026): Vitis International Variety Catalogue, www.vivc.de, passport id 2325, accessed October 2026 (Castets: Gros Cabernet x Camaraou Noir by markers)
- Boursiquot, J.-M. et al. (2009), 'Parentage of Merlot and related winegrape cultivars of southwestern France: discovery of the missing link', Australian Journal of Grape and Wine Research 15 (2):144-155
- 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
- Robinson, Harding & Vouillamoz, Wine Grapes (2012), pedigree diagrams
- Rafael Ocete, María Ángeles López, Antonio Gallardo & Claire Arnold (2008), 'Comparative analysis of wild and cultivated grapevine (Vitis vinifera) in the Basque Region of Spain and France'
- José Vouillamoz, 'The Powerful Potentates of the Grape World: Noiriens and Carmenets' (Wine Scholar Guild lecture slides), September 17, 2023
- Étienne Moreau, Mise en place d'une sélection massale de Cabernet franc au Château Angélus, 2023, https://dumas.ccsd.cnrs.fr/dumas-04260828v1
- Wine Scholar Guild / Mary Gorman-McAdams MW, Bordeaux Masters study manual, 5th edition (2024), Unit 2
- 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
- Charles Cocks & Édouard Féret, Bordeaux et ses vins, 5th ed. 1886 and 6th ed. 1893, 'Castets'
- K. M. Sefc et al., 'Microsatellite variability in grapevine cultivars from different European regions and evaluation of assignment testing to assess the geographic origin of cultivars', 2000
- Röckel et al. (2026): Vitis International Variety Catalogue, www.vivc.de, accessed October 2026
Test yourself on Bordeaux · Found an error? Corrections