With a name taken from the Swedish word for ‘encore’, Dakapo is a red wine grape variety bred in Germany in 1972 by crossing two other red grapes - Deckrot with Blauer Portugieser. Similar to its parents in appearance, this variety offers a high resistance to frost and fungal disease, as well as a deep red pigment that has proven popular for blending.
A high yielding, vigorous and relatively early ripening variety, Dakapo is considered easy to cultivate and is particularly well adapted to cooler climate conditions. It has been included on the official German register of permitted varieties since 1999 and now has plantings in a number of the country’s wine-producing regions, most notably Baden, Rheinhessen and Pfalz. Neighbouring Switzerland has around eighteen hectares of this grape, mostly in the canton of Schaffhausen. With red-flesh berries, Dakapo is a teinturier variety (also known as a dying grape). It brings intense colour to blends, even in small quantities, and is predominantly produced for this purpose.
