Colombard
Cognac ingredient and summer wine grapes
The Colombard, along with Ugni Blanc and Folle Blanche, provides the base wines for Cognac and Armagnac. Among the three varieties, it is considered qualitatively less interesting, because it has a lot of alcohol and relatively low acidity. For this reason, its cultivation area has markedly shrunk since the 1970s. But today it is making a comeback as a supplier of cheap, citrus-fresh, florally-fragrant summer wines. The home of Colombard lies in the Charente region on the French Atlantic coast. Its name stems from the French “colombier”, a dovecote – not because the variety attracts the birds, but because of the bright colour of its berries.
