Folle blanche was the traditional grape variety of the Cognac and Armagnacregions of France. It is also known as Picpoule as well as Gros Plant and Enrageat blanc. Folle blanche is an offspring of Gouais blanc, with the other parent so far unidentified. It has been mostly replaced by its hybrid offspring Baco blanc due to phylloxera damage. Baco blanc is a cross of Folle blanche and the Vitis riparia × Vitis labrusca hybrid Noah. Folle blanche is also the parent of the very hardy and disease-resistant Baco 1, a cross of Folle blanche and a Vitis riparia variety. Baco noir and Baco 22 A, like Folle blanche and their other parents, produce a very acid wine. This makes them more suited to distillation than less acidic grapes. Folle blanche is used in the Loire Valley area and in Brittany around Nantes to produce Gros Plant du Pays Nantais, a very dry and often tartly acidic wine that pairs well with shellfish. There it is used both in the production of table wine as well as eau de vie.
History
The first recorded mentioning of Folle blanche was in 1696 when the grape was documented as one of the varieties growing in the Charente-Maritime department. Here the grape has had a long history being used in the production of Cognac and Armagnac. The name Folle is a feminine derivative of the French wordfou which means "mad" with ampelographers speculating that this could be a reference to the grapevine's tendency to being highly productive and grow vigorously where ever it is planted. Several of Folle blanche's synonyms also seems to make similar allusions such as Gros Plant which was first used for the grape in 1732 in the Loire-Atlantique department and Enrageat that has been a common synonym for Folle blanche in Southwest France since at least 1736. DNA analysis in the late 20th and early 21st century has concluded that Folle blanche is likely one of the numerous offspring vines of Gouais blanc, though the second parent is currently unknown. In 2001, FrenchampelographerGuy Lavignac theorized that Folle blanche likely originated in either the Landes or Gers departments of Southwest France due to the proliferation of offspring and sibling varieties of Folle blanche in those regions. Historically, Folle blanche was planted along the western coast of France from the Loire Valley down through Gascony by Dutch wine merchants who used it in the production of eau de vie. After the phylloxera epidemic of the 19th century, plantings of Folle blanche declined as wine growers switched to heartier, more rot resistant varieties such as the Baco blanc grape in the Cognac and Armagnac regions. This trend continued throughout most of the 20th century and into the 21st century as plantings of Folle blanche steadily declined from in 1958 to in 2009.
Due to its complex genetic relationship with numerous varieties, Folle blanche is often mistaken for grape varieties that share some familial relationship such as its half-sibling Knipperlé. The synonyms Piquepoul used in the Gascony region and Piquepoul du Gers used in the Lot-et-Garonne department lead to confusion with the Rhone wine grape Piquepoul blanc but DNA analysis has shown no close relationship with the two varieties.
In 2009, there was of Folle blanche growing in France, most of it in the Pay Nantais region of the Loire Valley where it is used to make the Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée wine Gros Plant du Pays Nantais. While the grape's use in Cognac and Armagnac has largely fallen out of favor in preference to Baco blanc, some producers in Armagnac make a varietal brandy out of the grape. Outside France Folle blanche is grown in the Basque Country where it is known as Mune Mahatsa and is sometimes blended with Hondarribi Zuri. In the Catalan wine region of Spain it is used by some brandy producers. In California there are a few limited plantings of the variety.
