Parentage — Castilian variety that sailed with the conquest — mother of the American criollas
strawberry
pomegranate
white pepper
dried herbs
earth
Budbreak
Mid-season
Maturity
Second to third epoch; thrives dry-farmed in poor soils
Leaf
Medium, orbicular, five-lobed
Bunch
Large, conical, loose
Berry
Medium to large, spherical, purple-black but lightly pigmented; thin skin
The conquest's grape. Listán Prieto left Castile in the holds of the sixteenth century and became the first vinifera of the Americas: carried by way of the Canaries with the expeditions and missions of the 1520s to 1540s, it was planted from Mexico southward and northward for the sacramental and daily wine of an empire. Its aliases map the diffusion — Mission in California, País in Chile, Criolla Chica in Argentina — and its crossings with Muscat of Alexandria mothered the criolla family, Torrontés included.
For a century it was dismissed as rustic bulk, torn out wherever improvement arrived. The rehabilitation came from Chile's secano, where old dry-farmed bush vines survive in quantity: handled lightly, they give bright, peppery, light-bodied reds — history poured back into the glass.
In the blend
Share of this grape in a typical blend of each wine