Cabernet blanc

Cabernet blanc has strong resistance to most grape disease including botrytis bunch rot, downy and powdery mildew and tends to produce loose clusters of small, thick-skinned grape berries which can hang on the vine late into the harvest season to produce dessert wines.

Today the grape is found primarily in the Palatinate wine region of Germany with some experimental plantings in Spain and the Netherlands.

Masters of Wine Jancis Robinson, Julia Harding and Swiss geneticist José Vouillamoz speculate that the identity of Resistenzpartner may be a complex hybrid that is a crossing of Silvaner with another grape that itself is a complex crossing with a Riesling x unknown Vitis vinifera and JS 12417 x Chancellor parentage.

These small "shot berries" often add to the levels of sugar and phenolic extract of the wine and may make it seem "unbalanced".

Here the thick skin and high disease resistance of the variety lends itself well to the production of both dry and sweet late-harvest wines.

[2] As a relatively recent hybrid, Cabernet blanc does not have many synonyms with only Blattner 91-26-1 and VB 91-26-1 recognized by the Vitis International Variety Catalogue (VIVC) maintained by the Geilweilerhof Institute for Grape Breeding.

While Cabernet blanc is currently being cultivated in Germany and other wine regions, American wines labeled as Cabernet blanc or White Cabernet are actually still being made from Cabernet Sauvignon (pictured) .