OTHER NAMES: negreda (Spain-Galicia), juan garcía (Spain-Castilla León).
This is a traditional minority variety in the Ribeira Sacra area.
The small clusters are highly compact and very heavy. Short pedicels. The large elliptic grapes have a dark blue skin tone, with uncoloured flesh and pips. A vigorous, creeping, semi-climbing plant. Medium to high fertility. Moderately drought resistant, adapted to deep, clayey soils. Sensitive to oidium and botrytis. With a late budburst, which avoids the risk of frosts. This is a grape which produces neither a high level of alcohol nor high acidity. It has good winemaking properties.
These grapes endow the wine with an unmistakable uniqueness and typicality, giving them a special character, in which its balanced structure and smoothness is highlighted. The wine is of a bright purplish-red colour. An elegant and complex aromatic range of fruity fragrances of very ripe berries and fleshy fruit, with striking hints of spices, the end result of which is a balanced wine particularly well-suited for ageing.
