American vine
Triumph
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.
Triumph is a white American hybrid, given by George W. Campbell as Concord crossed with Chasselas musqué, tried in the Gironde as a direct producer after phylloxera.
Triumph is a white American hybrid, the seedling no. Six of George W. Campbell of Delaware, Ohio, given as Concord crossed with Chasselas musqué; VIVC records that pedigree with no DNA check. Its heavy golden bunches won the prize of honor at the 1880 table-grape show in Saint Louis, J. Roy-Chevrier wrote in Pierre Viala and Victor Vermorel’s Ampélographie (1901 to 1910). In the Gironde the earliest record in my library is the 1881 International Phylloxera Congress in Bordeaux, whose commission saw it in M. Piola’s collection at Condat near Libourne: “The Triumph shows astonishing fruiting. The grape is white, clean in taste, and ripens at the same time as the Malbec” («Le Triumph présente une fructification étonnante. Le raisin est blanc, droit de goût et mûrit à la même époque que le Malbec.»).
Piola had high hopes. On May 27, 1883, he wrote that Triumph seemed called to replace the Folle blanche, or enrageat, of the Entre-deux-Mers, which phylloxera had destroyed, and in 1886 Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, whose Bordeaux et ses vins was the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, listed it among the white direct producers. The same year M. Froidefond, vice-president of the Gironde agricultural society, found that Triumph, handsome in its first years with abundant golden fruit, declined from its fourth year. Once Viala and Ravaz measured its weak resistance to phylloxera, Roy-Chevrier wrote in 1904, it left large-scale planting for the collections.
Oldest record in my library: Compte rendu général du Congrès international phylloxérique de Bordeaux, 1881
The family
Parents unknown.
Triumph
In today’s rules
Not named in the rules of any Bordeaux appellation today.
In the books
“The Triumph shows astonishing fruiting. The grape is white, clean in taste, and ripens at the same time as the Malbec.”
Le Triumph présente une fructification étonnante. Le raisin est blanc, droit de goût et mûrit à la même époque que le Malbec.
“and among the whites: Noah, Triumph, and Elvira”
et parmi les blancs : le Noah , le Triumph et l'Elvira
“In 1886, M. Froidefond, vice-president of the Gironde agricultural society, notes that the Triumph, handsome in the first years after planting, with abundant golden fruit”
En 1886, M. Froidefond, vice-président de la Société d’agriculture de la Gironde, constate que le Triumph, beau pendant les premiéres années de sa plantation, avec fruits abondants et dorés
Sources
- Röckel et al. (2026): Vitis International Variety Catalogue, www.vivc.de, accessed October 2026 (passport TRIUMPH, VIVC 12656: pedigree as given CONCORD X CHASSELAS MUSQUE; no marker pedigree; breeder Campbell, George W.)
- Congrès international phylloxérique de Bordeaux, Compte rendu général du Congrès international phylloxérique de Bordeaux (Gironde), du 9 au 16 octobre 1881, 1881, p. 116 (Château de Meynard, Condat), pp. 136 to 137 (hybrids)
- Charles Cocks & Édouard Féret, Bordeaux et ses vins classés par ordre de mérite, 5e éd., 1886, p. 37 (phylloxera, Floirac, direct producers)
- Pierre Viala & Victor Vermorel (eds.), Traité général de viticulture: Ampélographie, vol. 5, 1904 (article by J. Roy-Chevrier), Triumph, pp. 187 to 188
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