Trousseau

Identity

Of the Jura's three black grapes, Trousseau is the one with the most backbone: the most deeply coloured, the most tannic, the one most often vinified alone rather than blended. Where Poulsard aims for finesse and lightness, Trousseau carries the Jura's longest-ageing reds — provided it is planted on the best-exposed sites, without which it fails to fully ripen.

History and origin

Pl@ntGrape, citing genetic analyses carried out in Montpellier, describes Trousseau as "probably a descendant of Savagnin". The VIVC confirms this by markers and is more specific still: the pedigree given is "? x Savagnin = Traminer", the second parent left unidentified. Only one of the two parents is known, so this entry does not fill in the structured parents field, which requires both — the same situation as Pinot Noir or Chenin Blanc in this corpus, where writing a pair would invent the missing half. The link to Savagnin, though, is stated plainly: Trousseau is one of four varieties in this corpus, alongside Gewurztraminer, Sylvaner and Chenin Blanc, that owe Savagnin Blanc at least half their parentage. Outside France, Trousseau carries the names "Bastardo" in Cyprus and Portugal, and "Merenzao" in Spanish Galicia.

In the vineyard

Per Pl@ntGrape, Trousseau buds three days after Chasselas and ripens in the first époque, a week and a half after it — an onset of ripeness as early as Savagnin's and Poulsard's, the Jura's two other varieties covered in this same task. That early calendar does not contradict the same entry's exposure requirement: Trousseau "must be planted on well-exposed sites to reach full ripeness", the date ripening begins and the quality it reaches being two different things. The vigour word here leaves no ambiguity: "Trousseau is a vigorous variety", the fiche states outright — unlike Savagnin and Poulsard, whose sources give no vigour word of their own and whose field is therefore left blank in this corpus. The variety is fairly susceptible to grey rot, to leafhoppers and to trunk diseases.

In the glass

Pl@ntGrape sums up Trousseau in a phrase that reads as much as a warning as a description: "characteristic, warm and full-bodied wines, with a lighter colour if yields are high". Kept to controlled yields, it gives deeply coloured reds built on blackberry and cassis, with a touch of black pepper and a spiced, sometimes lightly smoky base that recalls, in a more rustic register, some southern Rhône varieties. The best cuvées, often vinified as a single variety rather than blended with Poulsard, keep for five to ten years and more — the Jura red closest, in structure, to what a collector of ageable wine expects.

Great terroirs

Arbois and the Côtes du Jura make it a principal variety for red and rosé wines, alongside Pinot Noir and Poulsard. It is on the best-exposed slopes of these two appellations that Trousseau reaches the full ripeness its vigorous character demands.

What it gets confused with

Outside France, the name "Trousseau" covers several things that should not be conflated: Portugal's "Bastardo" and the Jura's "Trousseau" are the same variety under two distinct official names, but "Trousseau gris", sometimes cited in California or Oregon, refers to a grey-skinned mutation, a variety distinct from this entry. Nor should Trousseau's link to Savagnin — confirmed by markers for only one of its two parents — be mistaken for a complete pedigree: half of its ancestry remains, as of now, unknown.