Grape variety
Humagne Rouge
Humagne Rouge, Cornalin in the Aosta Valley: a child of Valais Cornalin, in Valais since the late 19th century. Origin, wild character, pairings.
- Colour
- Red
- Parentage
- Natural offspring of Cornalin du Valais (Rouge du Pays) and an unknown variety, from the Aosta Valley
- Grown in Switzerland
- About 140 hectares in Valais, mainly in the central Valais
- Typical aromas
- Wild berries, undergrowth, bark, violet, gentian
- Classic pairing
- Game: venison, wild boar, chamois stew
- Synonym
- Cornalin d’Aoste (not related to Humagne Blanche)
Humagne Rouge is the most misleadingly named grape in Switzerland. It is not related to Humagne Blanche, the old white variety whose name it borrowed, and it is not the Cornalin of Valais either, although in the Aosta Valley, where it comes from, it is called exactly that. DNA profiling in the late 1990s and early 2000s settled the matter: Humagne Rouge and Cornalin d’Aoste are one and the same variety, and that variety is a natural offspring of Rouge du Pays, the grape Valais now calls Cornalin, crossed with an unknown and probably extinct partner.
It crossed the Alps late. Humagne Rouge arrived in Valais over the Great St Bernard pass towards the end of the 19th century, several centuries after its parent had made the same journey, and settled in the central Valais around Sion, Sierre, Chamoson and Leytron. Today the canton grows about 140 hectares, making it the second of the two great indigenous reds, and it is virtually unknown outside Valais and Aosta.
The grape is sturdier than Cornalin in the vineyard but ripens late and needs warm, well-exposed slopes to lose its rusticity. The wine is medium-bodied, with moderate colour, and smells of the hillside in autumn: wild blackberries and bilberries, undergrowth, bark, violet and a bitter note that locals compare to gentian. Its tannins are firm and a little rough when young, which is why it was long treated as a simple country wine; careful producers now pick riper, soften the tannins with gentle extraction and some barrel age, and make serious, characterful bottles.
Humagne Rouge is the classic wine of the Valais hunting season. Drink it with venison, wild boar, a chamois stew, game birds with chestnuts, or simply with dried meat and rye bread. It can be drunk young for its fruit, but three to five years in the cellar round it out nicely. Serve at 16 to 17 degrees.