Terret Gris

Identity

Terret Gris is Terret's third colour, and the least documented of the three.

It is the same pattern as with the Grenaches: a black stock, a complete white mutation, and a grey one where the berry keeps a little pigment. And the same documentary consequence — the grey form is always the one least known.

Pl@ntGrape gives it "agronomic aptitudes comparable to those of Terret Noir, its parent variety". As with Grenache Gris, that is an honest way of saying it has not been studied separately.

In the vineyard

Late bud burst and late ripeness, like the stock. No vigour filled in, no susceptibilities of its own: the empty fields mean "not established".

In the glass

A single character quantified by the source, and it is the same as Terret Noir's: low alcohol. Pl@ntGrape speaks of "neutral wines, low in alcoholic degree".

Neutral and low in alcohol. In a Midi where the problem is excess degree, that is a function rather than a fault — but a function you do not taste.

This entry's single descriptor, green apple, is a reading of that neutral, fresh register, not a quotation.

Three pages, one variety, three lines of text

Terret Noir, Terret Blanc and Terret Gris each hold an entry here because each holds a line in the cahiers des charges. That is not redundancy: at Palette, Terret Gris is named and Terret Blanc is not.

A Palette grower who plants Terret Blanc is outside the appellation. The mutation does not change the wine measurably; it changes the law.

Where it is named

At Palette, an accessory variety — and the only Terret that appellation keeps, among the twenty-four grapes it names.

What this entry does not say

Almost everything that would distinguish it from its two siblings. No vigour, no susceptibility measured separately, no sourced aroma profile, no planted area. It is the thinnest entry in the family, and it is faithful to the state of the documentation.