Carignano

Also known as Carignan, Mazuelo, Cariñena, Bovale Grande.

Carignano is the Sardinian name for Carignan (Spanish Mazuelo/Cariñena), a late-ripening dark red grape whose Sardinian home is the sandy, wind-swept Sulcis in the island's south-west, including the islands of Sant'Antioco and San Pietro. There it survives as old, often ungrafted bush vines (alberello) on sand, a phylloxera-free terroir prized for concentrated old-vine reds.

It gives deeply coloured, structured reds with firm tannins, good acidity, and flavours of black fruit, liquorice and Mediterranean scrub; old Sulcis vines yield especially rich, age-worthy wines. On Sardinia the grape Bovale Grande is considered the same as, or very close to, Carignano.