Cabernet sauvignon with steak on Saturday? Pinot noir with your weekday baked salmon? A red blend for movies on the couch?
I get it. We’re creatures of habit—especially with wine.
It’s easier to stick with what you know (and what you like) than it is to go out on a limb and try something new. What if you hate it? What if it doesn’t pair with your salmon or steak or taste in movies? Eek!
In the spirit of the new year, I’d like to challenge you wine-lovers out there to dip your toe into what’s probably uncharted territory—a little grape called cinsault.
Maybe this varietal, often from southern France, is nothing new to you, and perhaps you are familiar with the wines made from this grape. However, if you don’t know how to pronounce cinsault, let alone know what it tastes like, allow me to introduce you.
This red grape is pronounced “san-so” and has long been a staple in the Languedoc-Roussillon and Southern Rhone regions of France. Here, this grape—which is soft in tannins and higher in acid—displays beautiful bright-red fruits like cranberry and pomegranate with a touch of spice; it has long and solely been used as a blending grape. It’s one of 13 permitted varietals in Chateauneuf-du-Pape, but it’s not on the tip of everyone’s tongue. Cinsault had become the backup signer to more prominent grapes like grenache, syrah and even mourvedre. Cinsault was nothing more than a cog in the wheel of French wine, blended into obscurity.
Its hardy nature and tolerance of heat and drought has made this grape the global “little engine that could” for countries like Algeria, Morocco and Lebanon. While still a blending grape in these far-off regions, cinsault in these places was at least starting to take center stage, being the focal point of the wine. But then again, wines from Algeria and Morocco aren’t exactly flying off the shelves, and cinsault wasn’t helping their popularity.
In South Africa, cinsault is known under another name: hermitage. Back in the 1920s, a professor of viticulture at Stellenbosch University decided to cross pinot noir—a fickle and difficult grape to grow—with hermitage/cinsault to create a whole new varietal that could withstand the harsh winds of the Cape of Good Hope thanks to the hardy cinsault vine, while showing off the beautiful and delicate flavors and aromas of the pinot noir grape. Pinot noir and hermitage became one, thus the name pinotage. This was the closest cinsault had gotten to having its own identity—and yet we were still a far cry from really knowing what this grape was all about.
A few years back, I travelled to Paso Robles with some friends for my birthday. We dined at a fabulous restaurant called In Bloom, where I pored over the wine list trying to figure out what this group of wine nerds would all enjoy. Sure, there were cabernets and lots of grenaches and red blends from which to choose—but something unique caught my eye: a bottle of cinsault from a small winery named Thacher. Perfect!
It was light enough in body not to overpower the more delicate courses, but full-flavored enough to stand up to the heartier dishes that arrived. This was the first time I had tasted a 100% cinsault—and I was in love.
We went through three bottles of this wine that night. The Thacher cinsault was center stage on our table, with each of us raving about how it paired so beautifully with all the different dishes that kept coming. We drank it with everything from stuffed squash blossoms to whole pan-seared trout, and Kurobuta pork chops to grilled New York steak. It was light enough in body not to overpower the more delicate courses, but full-flavored enough to stand up to the heartier dishes that arrived. Indeed, cinsault had a breakout performance and stole the spotlight at that dinner. This was the first time I had tasted a 100% cinsault—and I was in love.
Since then, I’ve come across several outstanding bottlings of this once-obscure grape. As I’m writing this, I’m sipping on a fabulous cinsault from South Africa—not a pinotage, mind you, but rather a 100% hermitage, or as they are calling it now, cinsault. The Mother Rock Wines “Force Celeste” cinsault from Swartland 2022 is the brainchild of winemaker Johan Meyer, aka “Stompie,” a rising star in the South African wine scene. His cinsault is unfiltered and unfined to give it depth and texture, while the crunchy yet ripe red fruits explode out of the glass. There is a subtle herbaceousness and rustic quality to this wine as it offers up lip-smacking tart cherry flavors that keep you coming back for more.
Even more traditional wineries like Tablas Creek are venturing into the world of single-varietal cinsault bottlings. I just had the pleasure of tasting the newest release of their 100% cinsault, and it is dreamy. While a little bigger and more robust than some of its counterparts, the Tablas Creek offering is ideal for wine-lovers looking for a traditional style of wine from an unexpected source. Flavors of red plums, black licorice, kitchen spices and chocolate are layered in the glass.
One of my other personal favorite incarnations of this grape comes from a little wine project called Onesta. Winemaker Jillian Johnson DeLeon graduated from the University of California, Davis, with a degree in viticulture and immediately began working for wine icon Randall Grahm at Bonny Doon. She became assistant winemaker for the head “Rhone Ranger” before starting her own wine label. This is a true testament to her wine skills—she makes a 100% old-vine cinsault from one of the most famous vineyards in the country… the Bechthold vineyard in Lodi. Ladies and gentlemen, not only is this one of the oldest vineyards in the country, planted in 1886; it is the oldest cinsault vineyard in the world. THE WORLD. All organically grown and dry-farmed, these ancient vines produce a cinsault of great concentration and depth, with flavors of black cherry, rhubarb, plums and vanilla. It truly is a treasure to taste.
The next time you’re out shopping for your weekly wine allowance, instead of reaching for the same old bottle of blah blah blah, shake up your new year with some cinsault—and see what happens when the backup signer gets her own show.
Katie Finn is a certified sommelier and certified specialist of wine with two decades in the wine industry. She can be reached at katiefinnwine@gmail.com.
