Grape variety
Cornalin
Cornalin, once Rouge du Pays: the oldest red grape of Valais, first recorded in 1313 and nearly lost. Parentage, character and what to drink it with.
- Colour
- Red
- Parentage
- Parents unknown; the Mayolet × Petit Rouge cross proposed in 2003 was refuted by Agroscope in 2025
- First recorded
- 1313 in the Val d’Anniviers, with Humagne and Rèze the oldest grape names recorded in Valais
- Grown in Switzerland
- About 165 hectares, virtually all in Valais
- Typical aromas
- Black cherry, blackcurrant, clove, violet
- Synonyms
- Rouge du Pays, Landroter, Cornalin du Valais
Cornalin is the oldest red grape Valais can call its own, and the one it nearly lost. A document from the Val d’Anniviers dated 1313 names, alongside Humagne and Rèze, a Neyrun that is taken to be Rouge du Pays; they are the oldest grape names in any Valais record. For most of its history it was simply Rouge du Pays, the red of the country, or Landroter in the German-speaking Upper Valais. The name Cornalin was adopted only when the variety was rediscovered in the 1970s, which has caused lasting confusion, because the Aosta Valley had long used the same name for a different grape, the one Valais calls Humagne Rouge.
Where it came from is an open question again. DNA work by José Vouillamoz and colleagues, published in 2003, read it as a natural cross of two old Aosta Valley varieties, Mayolet and Petit Rouge. A study by Agroscope published in 2025 refuted that parentage on the basis of the berry colour gene: Rouge du Pays is closely related to several Valais and Aosta Valley varieties, but at least one of its parents is unknown and probably extinct. What remains is its link to the Aostan Cornalin, of which it is regarded as a parent, so the two namesakes are related after all, as parent and child.
Growers abandoned it for good reasons. The vine is irregular: it sets fruit unevenly, ripens late, alternates heavy and light crops and demands the best, warmest slopes. By the middle of the 20th century only a few rows were left. A handful of stubborn producers replanted it, and today Valais has about 165 hectares, a small number for a grape that many now regard as the canton’s finest red.
The wine is deep, almost black-purple in colour, with black cherry, blackcurrant, clove and violet on the nose, firm but ripe tannins and lively acidity. Young Cornalin is fruity and a little wild; after five to ten years it becomes smooth, spicy and elegant. It is a wine for the cold months: venison and other game, roast lamb, a beef stew, or a plate of aged Alpine cheese and Valais dried meat. Serve it at 16 to 18 degrees and decant the young ones.