Pinot and Syrah – members of the same family

Who would have thought it? Pinot turns out to be related to Syrah or, to take it out of the vineyard and into the glass, the variety responsible for that delicate Volnay is a relative of the one that gives us Barossa Shiraz. Some European visitors to Australia may have been bemused by the Pinot/Shiraz blend wine style developed there, but perhaps this was misplaced.

 

Grapevine geneticists José Vouillamoz and Stella Grando of the Istituto Agrario, San Michele all'Adige in Italy used a recently-developed technique for assessing probabilities that had never been applied to grape cultivars before to unravel...