Interesting.
There must be something in the air.....
I spent many days researching Jacquez/Lenoir/Black Spanish a couple of months ago for a book I'm writing, and I had an article investigating the origins of the variety published in the last issue of the Circle of Wine Writers journal .
I am also conversing with R.L. Winters of Fairhaven Vineyards in Hawkins, Texas who is writing a Thesis on the matter of the mysterious origin of the variety. RL is looking for very old vines to take DNA samples from for testing in an attempt to shed some light on this variety. He says "Of very great importance is locating the oldest specimens of the Lenoir (and Herbemont) as possible in the New Orleans area and the lower Savannah River Valley (Georgia and South Carolina). "
The Vintage Texas article doesn't add to what I know, but I am very intrigued by his reference to Pinotage............
I have not come across Freddy Couderc's book, Les vins mythiques de la Cévenne ardéchoise et du Bas-Vivarais and I cannot read French. Have you read it?
The French growers of Jacquez have a website -- I think you know it Paul -- at
http://vigneantan.com/en/index.htm