Colombard

Colombard is an early fruiting white variety of wine grape, better known as French Colombard in North America.

• Old vine grapes are crushed by some northern Californian producers and made into a fruity white wine of interesting character in both dry and sweet versions. This grape is mainly grown in California to provide backbone, due to its natural acidic character, for white "jug wine" blends.

• In France it was traditionally grown in the Charentes and Gascony for distilling into Cognac and Armagnac respectively. Today it is still used for white wine blends in certain Bordeaux AOCs and in Gascony for Vins de Pays Côtes de Gascogne and the white Floc de Gascogne.

• It is also widely grown in South Africa and to a lesser extent in Australia.