Teinturier Grape Varieties

Before I began learning about grape varieties I had no idea that even red grape varieties of Vitis vinifera have a white pulp. The first time that I encountered this was at our friend's vineyard where we helped harvest their Pinot Noir and found that while the skin was red, the flesh was white! The red color comes from the skin where a compound called an anthocyanin is located. The extraction of anthocyanin during the winemaking process is what provides the color in a red wine. (This is a much more complicated chemical process than merely extracting the red color, but more on this in a future blog).
The basic backbone structure of an anthocyanin is shown below:^1,2

Since that time, I have learned that there are some varieties called teinturier (pronounced tan-tewr-EHR)³ that have red pulp as well as red skins.the most familiar variety is called Alicante Bouschet, others include Rubired and Royalty, grapes that were produced in the 1930's at the University of California, Davis, by Dr. Harold P. Olmo. ⁴ Other teinturier cultivars include Lacryma and Neronet. Teinturier grapes can be used for blending in red wines to give the wines a more intense red color.
1. All structures were drawn by the freely available drawing program from ACD Labs called ACD/ChemSketch Freeware.
2. Anthocyanin structure is from: Ronald S. Jackson, Wine Science Principles and Applications, Third Edition, Academic Press, 2008, pg. 282.
3. Pronounciation from: WineTasteTV.
4. Information on Wikipedia for Royalty Grape.