Red grape
Prunelard
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.
Prunelard is a black French grape that DNA markers show to be a parent of Malbec (Cot), the old Bordeaux grape, with Magdeleine Noire des Charentes.
Prunelard is a black grape from France (VIVC passport 9792), and the Wine Grapes pedigree sheet colors it as a grape of the Tarn. VIVC records no parents for it. DNA markers show that it is a parent of Malbec, called Cot in the rules, with Magdeleine Noire des Charentes: Jean-Michel Boursiquot and colleagues reported the cross in 2009, and VIVC lists it as confirmed. Malbec was already among the best red grapes of the Gironde when William Franck, the Bordeaux wine merchant, listed them in his Traité sur les vins du Médoc in 1824.
Wine Grapes (2012) also proposes Prunelard as a parent of Mérille. Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, whose Bordeaux et ses vins was the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, named a “La Grosse Mérille” in 1868, most likely today’s Mérille. Prunelard has a modern foothold of its own: it is one of the 52 varieties of the VitAdapt experimental vineyard, planted in 2009 at Villenave-d’Ornon to see how grapes behave in a warming climate. A near name can mislead: the “Prunelas ou Pruneley” of the old guide points to other vines, and its identity is open.
Oldest record in my library: Victor Rendu, Ampélographie française, 1857 (a list of grapes that includes “Prunelard”)
The family
- Boursiquot et al. 2009, AJGWR 15:144-155; VIVC 2889
- Robinson, Harding & Vouillamoz, Wine Grapes (2012), pedigree diagram; no pedigree on VIVC 7650
The discovery: In 2009, Boursiquot and colleagues showed with DNA markers that Prunelard is a parent of Malbec (Cot).
The names
Other names in VIVC: Prunelart.
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 9792, accessed October 2026
- Röckel et al. (2026): Vitis International Variety Catalogue, www.vivc.de, passport id 2889, accessed October 2026 (Cot: pedigree confirmed by markers Magdeleine Noire des Charentes x Prunelard)
- 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
- Robinson, Harding & Vouillamoz, Wine Grapes (2012), pedigree diagrams
- Wilhelm Franck, Traité sur les vins du Médoc, 1st ed., 1824, ch. 2, meilleurs cépages
- Charles Cocks & Édouard Féret, Bordeaux et ses vins classés par ordre de mérite, 2nd ed., 1868, p. 23; identity of 'La Grosse Mérille' as in the Mérille pack (likely)
- van Leeuwen, C. et al. (2019), 'An Update on the Impact of Climate Change in Viticulture and Potential Adaptations', Agronomy 9:514, Figure 6, list of the 52 VitAdapt varieties
- Gastou, P. et al. (2024), 'Gradient of grapevine varietal susceptibility to esca', https://hal.science/hal-04784616v1
- Victor Rendu, Ampélographie française, 1857
- Bordeaux Reviews, Old names
- Röckel et al. (2026): Vitis International Variety Catalogue, www.vivc.de, accessed October 2026
Test yourself on Bordeaux · Found an error? Corrections