Orléans (grape)

Orléans
Grape (Vitis)
Orléans growing in Geisenheim
Color of berry skin	Blanc
Species	Vitis vinifera
Also called	Weisser Orléans, Gelber Orléans
Origin	France?
Notable regions	Germany
Notable wines	German wine in the 19th century and earlier

Orléans is a variety of white grape (sp. Vitis vinifera) which up until the 19th century was much grown in Germany, but in very little use since the early 20th century. It has large berries with thick skins and a high yield. Young Orléans wine has been described as somewhat reminiscent of wine made from white varieties of the pinot family, but with pineapple aromas.

German legends claim that the variety is French in origin, actually from the city of Orléans, and that Charlemagne (742-814) was responsible for the first German plantings, which should have been in Rüdesheimer Berg in Rheingau, which were locally known as Berg Orléans. However, there seem to be no documentary evidence to support this, and other legends point to Charlemagne as an importer of red varieties. The origin of this grape variety is not known with precision; it could have been brought from France by the Cistercian monks who founded much of the German wine industry along Rhine. What is known is that has a long history in the wine-growing areas along the Rhine, where Orléans and Trollinger were common earlier than Riesling. In the 19th century, it was widely used in Gemischter Satz plantation together with varieties such as Elbling, Heunisch, Riesling, Pinot gris, Silvaner and Traminer. In the 19th century, It seems to have been particularly common in many of the best vineyard sites, such as Rüdesheimer Berg in Rheingau and the vineyards Jesuitengarten, Kirchenstück and Ungeheuer around Forst in the Palatinate, where it was mixed with Riesling and Traminer. The reason for this seems to be that, although high yielding, it is a late ripening variety that needed to be planted in these sites in order to ripen properly, and would not give a good quality in every year. Most likely this was the reason for its decline, since it had to compete for the best sites with Riesling. Varietally pure Orléans wines were considered to be heavy, spicy and long-lived.