Cinsault is an ancient grape of the French Midi, bred by no one and suited to everything the South imposes: heat, drought, poor soils. Its large, fleshy berries give pale, silky, gently perfumed juice — which long condemned it to bulk blends, and now makes it the quiet aristocrat of rosé, the discreet majority partner in many a Provençal pink.
Its history took a southern-hemisphere turn. At the Cape of Good Hope, where it was grown as "Hermitage", it was crossed with Pinot Noir in 1925 to produce Pinotage, South Africa's own variety. After decades of anonymous labour, old bush-vine parcels in the Languedoc, Chile and South Africa are now bottled on their own — and taken seriously at last.