Grenache — Garnacha to the Spanish — rose in Aragon and travelled with the medieval Crown of Aragon along the western Mediterranean, reaching Sardinia, Roussillon and the southern Rhône. Sturdy-wooded and drought-loving, it is the classic bush vine of hot, dry, windswept country, ripening late to high sugar where thinner-skinned grapes would fail.
It gives pale, heady, generous wine — strawberry and white pepper, warmth and a whisper of garrigue — and anchors the blends of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, where it is the leading grape among thirteen. As Cannonau it is the pride of Sardinia; in Priorat and across old-vine Australia, gnarled century-old vineyards have driven a modern revival, their tiny yields turning Grenache's easy generosity into something concentrated and serious.