Cabernet Sauvignon Grape

Cabernet Sauvignon is the most widely planted wine grape in the world, with roughly 840,000 acres under cultivation globally, and for most of its history its exact origins were genuinely unknown. That changed in 1996-1997, when the same UC Davis grapevine geneticist already documented in this database for solving Zinfandel's origin mystery, Carole Meredith, used DNA profiling to definitively confirm that Cabernet Sauvignon is the natural offspring of two well-known Bordeaux grapes: Cabernet Franc, a red variety, and Sauvignon Blanc, a white one. Most wine historians believe this cross happened by chance sometime in the 17th century, likely on or near the Chateau d'Armailhac or Chateau Mouton estates in the Pauillac area of Bordeaux's Medoc region — a real, specific, geographically documented likely birthplace, even though the exact circumstances were never recorded. It reached California in the 1800s, likely brought by Hungarian-American immigrant Agoston Haraszthy, often called the father of California viticulture. From that Bordeaux origin, it has since spread to nearly every major wine-producing country and climate in the world, from Napa Valley and Coonawarra to Chile's Maipo Valley.