Accessory white grape

Ugni Blanc

ew-NYEE BLAHN
How to read this

Capitals mark the stressed syllable. “ew” is “ee” said with rounded lips. “ahn” is a nasal vowel: say it through the nose, with no n. “ny” is the ny in “canyon”. The recording is the reference.

Ugni Blanc is the French name of Trebbiano Toscano, a white grape of Italian origin with no known parents: France’s most planted grape in 2024, and in Bordeaux an accessory white.

Ugni Blanc is the French name of Trebbiano Toscano; VIVC gives Italy as its country of origin and names no parents. It was France’s most planted grape in 2024, with 99,816 ha by FranceAgriMer’s count, ahead of Merlot, which had led every year from 2019 to 2023 in the same table. In the Bordeaux rules it is an accessory white with Colombard and Merlot Blanc, and in white Côtes de Blaye it is a principal grape with Colombard, the 2 together making 60% to 90% of the vineyard under the 2017 rules.

It comes late to the Gironde books. The earliest record in my library there is the 1922 edition of Bordeaux et ses vins by Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, the reference book of the Bordeaux trade. After the grapes of the great wines and the Enrageat, it adds a list of minor whites: “One also finds the Sauvignon-Rose, the Blanc-Aouba, the Blanc-Doux, the Blanc-Verdet, the Prunelat or Chalosse, the Jurançon-Blanc, the Ugni-Blanc or Saint-Emilion” (« On rencontre aussi [...] l'Ugni - Blanc ou Saint - Emilion »). Outside the Gironde, Pierre Viala’s Les maladies de la vigne (1893) put Ugni blanc among the vines very little attacked by downy mildew.

That second name is a trap. Auguste Petit-Lafitte, the Gironde’s professor of agriculture, wrote in La vigne dans le Bordelais (1868) that the abbé Bellet, one of the older writers he drew on, called the Sémillon “indifferently Sémillion or Saint-Emilion”. VIVC, for its part, lists Saint Emilion and Saint Emilion des Charentes among the synonyms of Trebbiano Toscano. An old “Saint-Emilion” vine in a Gironde text can therefore be either grape, and only the context decides. In the Gironde, Ugni Blanc lost 3,891 ha between 1988 and 2018, by the count of Agreste, the farm ministry’s statistics service.

Oldest record in my library: “l’Ugni blanc”, 1854, in Alexandre-Pierre Odart, Ampélographie universelle, 3rd edition (Cassis and the Var); “Ugni blanc”, 1872, in C. Ladrey, Traité de viticulture et d’œnologie, reprinting Dr Jules Guyot’s list of 1868 (Provence); in the Gironde, “l’Ugni-Blanc ou Saint-Emilion”, 1922, in Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, Bordeaux et ses vins, 9th edition

The family

Parents unknown.

Ugni Blanc

The names

As the Gironde books wrote it: Ugni - Blanc ou Saint - Emilion, Saint-Emilion.

Other names in VIVC: Beou, Blanc Auba, Blanc De Cadillac, Blancoun, Bouan, Cadillac, Cadillate, Castillonne, Chauche Gris, Clairette A Grains Ronds, Clairette De Vence, Clairette Ronde, Espagnolet, Graisse.

Old names: Blanc-Auba (open)

In today’s rules

Accessory (white) in 6 of the appellations and designations on this site; accessory (sparkling) in 1.

Accessory · white
Blaye Côtes de Bordeaux (to 15%), Bordeaux (to 30%), Bordeaux Supérieur (to 30%), Côtes de Bordeaux (to 15%), Entre-deux-Mers, Haut-Benauge
Accessory · sparkling
Crémant de Bordeaux

Area planted

  • 99,816 ha planted area, France, 2024
    FranceAgriMer, Les chiffres-clés de la filière viti-vinicole 2024 (December 2025 edition), p. 11 'Les principaux cépages plantés en 2024', source printed: DGDDI, déclarations de plantation au 31/07/2025 (CVI), https://www.franceagrimer.fr/sites/default/files/2025-12/20251121_CC%20VITI%20VINICOLE%20%202025.pdf, accessed 2026-10-12

In the books

“One also finds the Sauvignon-Rose, the Blanc-Aouba, the Blanc-Doux, the Blanc-Verdet, the Prunelat or Chalosse, the Jurançon-Blanc, the Ugni-Blanc or Saint-Emilion”

On rencontre aussi le Sauvignon - Rose , le Blanc - Aouba , le Blanc- Doux , le Blanc - Verdet , le Prunelat ou Chalosse , le Jurançon - Blanc , l'Ugni - Blanc ou Saint - Emilion

Bordeaux et ses vins classés par ordre de mérite (9e éd.), 1922, p. 17

Timeline

  1. 1872Ladrey reprints Dr Guyot's 1868 list of the vines grown in France, which gives 'Ugni blanc' as a Provence variety.
    C. Ladrey, Traité de viticulture et d'oenologie, t. 1, 1872, pp. 420 and 424, reprinting Dr Guyot's list of 1868
  2. 2018Ugni Blanc loses 3,891 ha in the Gironde between 1988 and 2018.
    Agreste Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Études n°7 (June 2020, rectificatif), '1. Le foncier viticole: la Gironde', C. Lavaud and J. Bonotaux, p. 73, Figure 2 'Évolution des surfaces par encépagement entre 1988 et 2018, en hectare' (sources printed: RGA 1988, CVI 2018), https://draaf.nouvelle-aquitaine.agriculture.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/AgresteNAEtudes_7juin2020_FFvitiGironde_RECTIFICATIF_cle0edc51.pdf, accessed 2026-10-12
  3. 2024Ugni Blanc is France's most planted variety, with 99,816 ha, ahead of Merlot, which led from 2019 to 2023.
    FranceAgriMer, Les chiffres-clés de la filière viti-vinicole 2024 (December 2025 edition), p. 11 'Les principaux cépages plantés en 2024', source printed: DGDDI, déclarations de plantation au 31/07/2025 (CVI), https://www.franceagrimer.fr/sites/default/files/2025-12/20251121_CC%20VITI%20VINICOLE%20%202025.pdf, accessed 2026-10-12

In the lab

More than 347 studies and theses in the Bordeaux Reviews library mention this grape.

Sources

  • Röckel et al. (2026): Vitis International Variety Catalogue, www.vivc.de, passport id 12628, accessed October 2026
  • Röckel et al. (2026): Vitis International Variety Catalogue, www.vivc.de, prime-name search 'TREBBIANO TOSCANO' (synonyms incl. SAINT EMILION, SAINT EMILION DES CHARENTES, UGNI BLANC), accessed October 2026
  • FranceAgriMer, Les chiffres-clés de la filière viti-vinicole 2024 (December 2025 edition), p. 11 'Les principaux cépages plantés en 2024' (DGDDI, CVI at July 31, 2025), https://www.franceagrimer.fr/sites/default/files/2025-12/20251121_CC%20VITI%20VINICOLE%20%202025.pdf, accessed October 2026
  • INAO, cahier des charges AOC Bordeaux, modification adopted by the CNAOV on February 7, 2023 (national opposition procedure draft), V.1 and VI.2, https://extranet.inao.gouv.fr/fichier/CDCBordeaux-PNO2023.pdf, accessed October 2026
  • Cahier des charges AOC Côtes de Blaye, arrêté of November 21, 2017, JORF December 1, 2017, BO-Agri December 7, 2017, V.1 and V.2, https://extranet.inao.gouv.fr/fichier/CDC-Cotes-de-Blaye-BO-2017-12-07.pdf, accessed October 2026
  • Charles Cocks & Édouard Féret, Bordeaux et ses vins classés par ordre de mérite, 9th ed., 1922, Ampélographie, p. 17
  • Pierre Viala, Les maladies de la vigne, 1893, Mildiou, 'Cépages trés peu attaqués'
  • Auguste Petit-Lafitte, La vigne dans le Bordelais, 1868, Sémillion, 'Histoire'
  • Agreste Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Études n°7 (June 2020, rectificatif), C. Lavaud and J. Bonotaux, '1. Le foncier viticole: la Gironde', p. 73, Figure 2 (RGA 1988, CVI 2018), https://draaf.nouvelle-aquitaine.agriculture.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/AgresteNAEtudes_7juin2020_FFvitiGironde_RECTIFICATIF_cle0edc51.pdf, accessed October 2026
  • Alexandre-Pierre Odart, Ampélographie universelle, ou Traité des cépages les plus estimés, 3rd ed., Paris, 1854
  • C. Ladrey, Traité de viticulture et d'oenologie, t. 1, 1872, pp. 420 and 424 (Dr Guyot's list of 1868)
  • Röckel et al. (2026): Vitis International Variety Catalogue, www.vivc.de, accessed October 2026

Every grape

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