In Sardinia, Vernaccia (white wine and grape variety) has always been distinguished from Cannonau (red wine and “tinto” grape variety). Therefore, it becomes important, for the purpose of our investigation, to understand whether, in Spain, as in the rest of Europe, the name “Garnacha” really referred to a white wine, similar to Greek wines (Muscat and Malvasia).
This is not a minor aspect. Experts in etymology and Romance languages have no doubts about this (Wagner, re-ed. 1996; Henry, 1986; De Casas, 1992; Moulin, 1993; Rull, 1999). Similar certainties can be found in the Castilian etymological dictionary (Corominas, 1967 and 1980) and the Catalan etymological dictionary (De Borja Moll, 1998): Garnacha (or Garnatxa, in Catalan) derives from Italian Vernaccia. Therefore, if Garnacha derives from Vernaccia (in Teruel, Aragon, Garnacha-Cannonau is still called Bernacha), how long has it been since the word Garnacha has not been used in Spain to define a white wine, but a red one?

In 1348, in the “Regiment de preserva- ciò de pestilencia” of the municipality of Lleida, it is suggested to use, as a remedy, hot wine naturally “…axí com grech ho vernaça…” (…whether it be Greek or Vernaccia). The association of Greek wine (malvasias or muscats) with Vernaccia should leave no doubts: it is a white wine. But even clearer is the Catalan Franciscan Francesc Eiximenis, who, at the end of the 14th century, in his work “Lo Crestià,” lists Vernaccia among the white wines (Renedo I Puig, 2001).
It should be remembered that, also in the rest of Europe, Vernaccia (as Grenache, Vernache, Vernage, etc.) appears in documents from the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries always alongside Greek wine, that is, fine and aromatic white wine (Henry, 1986).
It is interesting to note that Garnacha is used to define a fine white wine even two centuries later. In fact, in the novella “El licenciado Vidriera” (1613), by the most important Spanish writer of all times, Miguel Cervantes, Garnacha is mentioned in a context that leaves no doubt that it refers to Vernaccia: in a list of Italian white wines appreciated by the protagonist in a tavern in Genoa. It should be noted that this mention by Cervantes is the first in Castilian where the term “Garnacha” appears (Corominas, 1967 and 1980; Henry, 1986), a true Italianism (Bocalo, 1998).
In the 17th century, in some Spanish convents, Garnacha was prepared, a beverage “composed of three different types of grapes, sugar, cinnamon, pepper, and some other ingredient” (Gomez Diaz, 2002). Presumably an attempt to imitate a sweet and aromatic white wine, but another demonstration that Garnacha as it is understood today in Spain (i.e., red wine) does not seem to exist in the mid-1600s. So at least until the mid-17th century, in Spain, when referring to Vernaça, or Garnacha, or Guarnacha, it meant Vernaccia, a sweet and fine white wine.
It would be interesting at this point to understand when the term Garnacha begins to be used to define a red wine. According to many authors, the first mention and description of the Garnacha-Cannonau grape in Spain can be attributed to the agronomist Alonso de Herrera and his “Obra de Agricoltura” from 1513, where he describes a vine called “aragonès.” For many (Meneghetti et al., 2006), this is considered the description of Garnacha-Cannonau due to the fact that “Tinto aragonès” is one of the other names by which Garnacha is known today in Spain. According to Herrera, the Aragonès grape is “a black grape, with large bunches, very tight and large berries: they are vines of great production. In the plain, they load a lot and produce a dark and full-bodied wine, while if planted at high altitudes or on sandy soils, they do not produce as much and make a lighter and smoother wine: it is a wine of great production that does not last long. The Tortozon and the Herrial are like the Aragonés…”.

It should be noted that it is unlikely that a description like this could apply to Cannonau. In fact, Tortozon and Herrial are grape varieties that still exist today, but no Spanish author has ever associated them (even as a simple resemblance) with Garnacha-Cannonau. On the contrary, the characteristics of these grape varieties, such as large bunches and large berries, seem to discourage such an association. These doubts were also shared by Rojas Clemente, the great ampelographer who, in the early 19th century, edited an edition of the “Obra,” in which he expressed perplexity about the correspondence of Aragonés with any of the Spanish varieties he described. Therefore, it seems rather risky (according to Rojas Clemente) to recognize any grape variety in the Aragonés mentioned by De Herrera.
It is Frate Miguel Agustin, a Catalan, who in his 18th-century book “Libro de los secretos de agricultura, casa campo y pastoril,” mentions a series of wines and grape varieties, such as the Greeks, Malvasia, and Macabeo. But he does not seem to mention Garnatxa (using Catalan spelling).
In the 1734 edition of the “Diccionario de la lengua española,” Garnacha is mentioned for the first time in reference to a “red” wine. In the 1780 edition, the description is more accurate: Garnacha is a variety of “roxa” grape from which wine is made in Aragon. But the same dictionary also reminds us that Garnacha is also a type of beverage called “carraspada,” similar to the one described in the 17th-century convent.
In short, the term Garnacha refers to several different beverages!
Garnacha is mentioned by Clemente Rojas in his 1807 Ensayo, in which we find Tintilla, also known as Alicante, described. Another name for Garnacha? Probably not: the Alicante in question has a “muy borrosa” leaf, meaning very tomentose, the opposite of Garnacha-Cannonau.
The name Garnacha, referring to a variety of black grape, appears in the 1854 “Manual de cosechero de vinos” by de Nieva: the importance of the grape variety seems rather negligible. Garnacha does not appear, however, in the “Tratado sobre el cultivo de la vid” by Antonio Blanco Fernandez from 1863.
Buenaventura Castellet mentions Garnacha (synonyms Tintilla and Alicante) and Tinto de Aragon in 1865, describing them as different varieties on different pages. Both seem worthy of the utmost consideration, and the author recommends their cultivation everywhere. He does not say whether the two are the same grape variety. In 1885, Eduardo Abela y Saiez de Andino, in his “El libro del viticultor,” corrects the inconsistency between Rojas Clemente and Buenaventura regarding Alicante: the Alicante described (as Tintilla) by Rojas Clemente is different from the one, which he calls Alicantina, described by Buenaventura Castellet in Catalonia.

Furthermore, Abela de Saiez quotes Valier, an agronomist and viticulturist from Aragon, who held a traveling chair of viticulture, saying, “Garnacha is the most modern grape variety in Aragon vineyards – (and we are in 1885…) – it was barely known as a table grape at the beginning of this century.” At Valier’s time, Garnacha was therefore the most widely grown grape in Aragon. Another agronomist from Aragon, Antonio Berbegal, confirms this statement, and both attribute the success of Garnacha to its resistance to powdery mildew. Saiez concludes by stating that “the cultivation of Garnacha is expanding significantly throughout Spain, with its presence reported not only in the province of Zaragoza, but also in Alava, Barcelona, Castellon, Girona, Huesca, Navarra, Tarragona, Teruel, and Valencia.” Naturally, if it is “expanding,” it means that it was either not widely grown or even non-existent before.
The late vocation of Garnacha for winemaking is also noted by Buenaventura Aragò, who wrote in 1871 that “Garnacha is a somewhat reddish grape… good for eating and drying,” meaning it is a red grape (whose ampelographic description is essentially that of Cannonau) good for eating and for being dried. In other words, according to experts of that time (two ampelographers and two Spanish agronomists), true “eyewitnesses,” in Aragon (the region of origin of Garnacha, based on the classical hypothesis of “Spanish” origin), red Garnacha was recognized as a wine grape only after the appearance of powdery mildew, when grape growers and experts recognized the remarkable resistance of the variety to this disease. And this seems to be the moment of the widespread cultivation of this grape variety.