Royalty (grape)

Royalty is a rouge Californian wine grape variety that was developed in 1938 by Dr. Harold P. Olmo of the University of California, Davis. The grape is a red fleshed teinturier which, unlike most red wine grapes, will produce red-tinged colored wine even without maceration time on the skins. The grape is a hybrid produced from the Vitis vinifera Trousseau gris variety from the Jura wine region of France and the teinturier grape Alicante Ganzin that is itself a hybrid of a Vitis rupestris variety and the Vitis vinifera grape Aramon.

History

Royalty was first cultivated by Dr. Olmo in 1938 at the California Agricultural Experiment Station of UC-Davis but wasn't released for commercial use until 1958. It was released at the same time as Rubired, another Olmo teinturier with Alicante Ganzin parentage. Like Rubired, Royalty was mostly grown in the Central Valley of California where it was used a blending grape to improve the color of red wines. However, Royalty showed itself to be more difficult to cultivate than Rubired and fell out of favor among many growers. While by the end of the 20th century there was still more than 6,000 acres of Rubired in production in California there were only around 800 acres of Royalty in use.

Synonyms

Among the synonyms that Royalty has been known as include California S 26, Kek Royalti and Royalti.