Graciano

Graciano is an aromatic, deeply coloured, high-acid red wine grape native to northern Spain, where it is one of the traditional varieties of Rioja and Navarra. Known in France as Morrastel and in Andalusia as Tintilla de Rota, it gives wines of intense violet-tinged colour, firm tannin, marked acidity and a perfume of black fruit, violets and licorice. For most of its history it was prized as a blending grape — a small dose lent colour, structure and scent to Tempranillo and helped Rioja's long-ageing Reservas and Gran Reservas — and its low yields and disease-prone vines drove it close to extinction in the twentieth century. A recent revival has seen a handful of bodegas bottle it on its own, revealing a bold, savoury, age-worthy varietal red.