Camaraou noir

Camaraou noir is a red French wine grape variety that was historically grown in South West France but is now more widely planted in the Spanish wine region of Galicia where it is known as Espadeiro. However, despite its Spanish synonym Camaraou noir has no relationship to the Portuguese wine grape Espadeiro that is used to make red Vinho Verde. The grape may have some relation to the Jurançon and Béarn wine grape Camaralet de Lasseube which is also known as Camaraou blanc but DNA analysis has shown that the two varieties are distinct and not color mutations of one or the other.

Ampelographers believe that the name Camaraou derives from the Béarnese word camarau which may have, in turn, be derived itself from the Gascon word cama that means "leg, trunk" and could be a reference to viticultural practice of growing grapevines up trees as trellising. Another possibility is that the name has some connection to the commune of Camalès located in the Hautes-Pyrénées department of southwestern France.

A late 18th century document shows that a Camarau grape was growing in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department, French Basque Country and in the País Vasco region of northern Spain, however the description of this grapes seems to indicate that it was more likely the white Camaraou blanc (Camaralet de Lasseube) grape. The first mention that was definitively of Camaraou noir was in Viala & Vermorel catalogue of grape varieties produced from 1901-1910 by the French ampelographers Pierre Viala and Victor Vermorel.

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