Baco noir

Red wine grape, hybridFrance

The style profiled here is a dry, medium-bodied red Baco noir wine: dark, smoky, tart, a hybrid. Typical alcohol is 12 to 13.5%. Serve it at 14 to 16 °C.

Also called Baco 1, Baco N°1, Baco #1, Bacoi, Bago, Bakon, Bako Speiskii, Baco noir grape.

The grape

Baco noir is a hybrid, created in 1902 by François Baco, a schoolteacher in Gascony, by crossing the French white Folle blanche with an American Vitis riparia vine. The point of such crossings was to combine European wine quality with American resistance to phylloxera and to cold, and Baco made several. This one carried his name and a catalogue number, Baco 24-23.

France eventually turned against hybrids and banned most of them from quality wine, so the grape's future was elsewhere. It found a home in the cold parts of North America: Ontario, New York State, Pennsylvania, Nova Scotia and Quebec, where the vine survives winters that would kill a vinifera vine outright, and ripens in a short season.

The wine is dark and deeply coloured with high acidity and low tannin, which is a combination almost unique to the hybrids. It tastes of black fruit and often has a smoky or slightly herbal note. It ages better than most hybrid reds, and Ontario in particular treats it as a serious wine rather than a compromise.

BuyingBuy it from Ontario or the Finger Lakes. Expect a sharp, dark, low tannin red, and serve it a little cool, closer to how you would treat a Gamay.

Style profile

Our rating of a representative wine
Sweetness
Bone dry
Body
Medium
Tannin
Medium
Acidity
High

Sweetness and structure vary with the producer, region and winemaking. These ratings describe the style above; check the label for the bottle in front of you.

Food pairings

Where it grows

Notable regions
OntarioNew YorkMichiganMississippiWisconsinPennsylvaniaOregonNew Mexico
Flavour
Medium body, deeply tinted

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