Mourvèdre

Also known as

Mataro, Monastrell

Mourvèdre, also known as Monastrell in Spain and Mataro in Cyprus and Australia, is a black-skinned red-wine grape. Its exact origins are not known with certainty; it is an ancient variety probably brought to Valencia by Phoenicians around 500 BC. Its French name may come from Murviedro near Valencia, and Mataro may come from Mataró in Catalonia.

It needs a hot, dry climate and is very late ripening. Today most plantings are in Spain, especially the southeast DOs (Spanish appellations) of Jumilla, Yecla, Bullas, Alicante and Valencia, plus the Balearic Islands. In France it is the backbone of Bandol in Provence and appears in the southern Rhône and Languedoc-Roussillon. Smaller plantings exist in Australia (South Australia, New South Wales), California, Washington, South Africa, Israel and Chile.

In the glass, Mourvèdre is deeply coloured, tannic and often high in alcohol, with blackberry, black cherry and plum fruit plus black pepper, clove, thyme and earthy, gamey, almost animal notes. Young wines can be reductive (made with too little oxygen), showing farmyard-like sulfur aromas that usually soften with age; Monastrell in hot Spain is generally softer and earlier maturing. It is made as a single-variety red, as part of the Grenache-Syrah-Mourvèdre (GSM) blend, and in rosé and fortified styles.