Red grape
Moural
How to read this
Capitals mark the stressed syllable. The French r comes from the back of the throat. The recording is the reference.
Moural is a black French grape that a 2013 DNA study proposed as a parent of Carmenère, with Cabernet Franc; a rival study names Gros Cabernet, and the question is open.
Moural is a black grape from France (VIVC passport 24235), with no parents and no other names on record. It enters the Bordeaux family tree through Carmenère, which William Franck, the Bordeaux wine merchant, already listed in 1824 among the best red grapes of the Gironde. Cabernet Franc is a parent of Carmenère under every hypothesis. For the second parent, VIVC holds 2: Gros Cabernet, from Jean-Michel Boursiquot and colleagues in 2009 on 35 DNA markers, and Moural, from Thierry Lacombe and colleagues in 2013 on 20 markers. VIVC’s remark is plain: “Several parentage hypotheses exist.”
The split reaches China. A 2017 study of Chinese grape landraces by Beibei Li and colleagues gives Cabernet Gernischt as Moural × Cabernet Franc, while Zhong and colleagues had found in 2012 that Cabernet Gernischt is most likely Carmenère and confirmed it as an offspring of Cabernet Franc and Gros Cabernet. Until more markers are read, as VIVC asks, Moural stays a proposed parent. The Gironde books record no vineyard of it.
Oldest record in my library: Beibei Li and colleagues, HortScience, 2017 (in the pedigree of Cabernet Gernischt); its place as a proposed parent of Carmenère comes from Thierry Lacombe and colleagues, Theoretical and Applied Genetics, 2013, as cited by VIVC
The family
- Lacombe et al. 2013, TAG 126:401-414 (VIVC hypothesis 2 of 2)
The discovery: In 2013, Lacombe and colleagues proposed Moural × Cabernet Franc as the parentage of Carmenère.
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 24235, accessed October 2026
- Röckel et al. (2026): Vitis International Variety Catalogue, www.vivc.de, passport id 2109, accessed October 2026 (Carmenère: 'DIFFERENT PROPOSITIONS'; remark 'Several parentage hypotheses exist.' and 'Analysis of additional nSSR or SNP markers or other proofs are needed to determine the correct parentage.')
- 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
- Wilhelm Franck, Traité sur les vins du Médoc, 1st ed., 1824, ch. 2, meilleurs cépages
- Beibei Li et al. (2017), 'Molecular Characterization of Chinese Grape Landraces (Vitis L.) Using Microsatellite DNA Markers'
- Zhong, X. M., Yao, Y. X., Du, Y. P. & Zhai, H. (2012), ''Cabernet Gernischt' is most likely to be 'Carmenère'', Vitis 51 (3):125-127
- Beibei Li et al., 'Molecular Characterization of Chinese Grape Landraces (Vitis L.) Using Microsatellite DNA Markers', HortScience, 2017
- Röckel et al. (2026): Vitis International Variety Catalogue, www.vivc.de, accessed October 2026
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