Parentage — Albillo Mayor × Benedicto — Iberia's great native grape
red cherry
dried fig
tomato leaf
leather
vanilla
Budbreak
Early to mid
Maturity
Early — hence temprano
Leaf
Large, five-lobed, dark green with a matte surface
Bunch
Medium to large, cylindrical, winged, compact
Berry
Medium, spherical, blue-black with bloom; thick skin
Tempranillo is Iberia's great native black grape, a natural cross of Albillo Mayor and Benedicto traced to the upper Ebro. Its name comes from temprano, "early", for it ripens well ahead of Spain's other reds — a useful virtue on the high, continental plateaux of the north, where the growing season is short.
It is the soul of Rioja, aged long in American oak whose vanilla and coconut became part of the wine's classic identity, and of Ribera del Duero, where at altitude it gives darker, denser wine under the name Tinto Fino. Carried west into Portugal it becomes Tinta Roriz and Aragonez, a pillar of Port and of Douro and Alentejo reds. Firm but not fierce, savoury, leathery and long, it is the backbone of Spanish red wine.
In the blend
Share of this grape in a typical blend of each wine