David Schildknecht considers the changing fortunes of once-derided grape varieties such as Carignan, Aligoté, and Palomino.

Ostensibly workhorse grapes sometimes gain luster thanks to prestigious champions. But it doesn’t take famous growers to raise the profile of a workhorse dramatically. Consider Carignan. “I cannot honestly see the point of planting young Carignan anywhere,” wrote Jancis Robinson MW in 2004, while belatedly acknowledging some “remarkable reds” alleged to exist “simply because of the age of their ancient vines.” She was undoubtedly correct in attributing this grape’s huge acreage to “[i]n one word: yield.” But if that explains both Carignan’s persistence and the crass acidic earthiness of so many instantiations, that says nothing about quality potential. Marjorie Gallet, Maxime Magnon, Jean-Philippe Padie, and Jean-Marie Rimbert first championed Carignan, then became well-known. And like Miguel Torres—famous, yes, but a latecomer to this party—they are all carefully planting thoroughbred selections.

Here be Alligators

Sylvain Pataille began fulfilling his aspirations as a vigneron in 1999, inspired in part by the potential of a parcel his grandfather had planted in the 1930s, before abandoning commercial viticulture and retaining the block solely for home consumption. Aligoté was soon a major player in Pataille’s fledgling portfolio. Tiny, golden berries on old vines reflected a distant era of selection for quality; price limited acquisition of Pinot parcels; above all, treated to viticultural respect and to vinificatory innovation born of intuition, Aligoté dazzled. “I want to help get it recognized,” said Pataille, adding: “It’s more or less our Carignan.” 

In 2013, he confessed to the “crazy idea” of bottling wine from each of his then four old-vine parcels separately. He never looked back, and today there are six such bottlings. There is even one bottling from a parcel in distant Bouzeron—the Côte Chalonnaise village that in 1997 acquired its own Aligoté-based AOC. But if 18 prior years of AOC Bourgogne Aligoté de Bouzeron—its existence owed to the influence of that village’s world-renowned vineyard-holder, Aubert de Villaine—had done little to raise the grape’s profile, then neither, predictably, did a self-standing AOC, with its attendant removal of “Aligoté” as well as “Bourgogne.” (From 2006, Jean-Marie Ponsot returned his renowned Morey-St-Denis Clos des Monts Luisants to the 100% Aligoté that his great-grandfather had planted in 1911; but few experienced tasters or critics even realized.) What began with Pataille, though, did not stay confined. The association that he catalyzed, “Les Aligoteurs,”now boasts a roster of nearly 70, in which Ponsot and De Villaine are just two among more than a dozen internationally revered names, and Pataille’s are now far from the only Aligotés that depart their cellars at a previously unthinkable €50 or more.

Secrets of “second-rate”

The case of Palomino is peculiar. It remains the overwhelmingly dominant variety informing Sherry, and while Sherry long suffered a decline in international attention, no one discounted its status as among the wine world’s important genres. Paradoxically, Palomino was disrespected as part of a laudatory narrative. Sherry, one recent article in its praise averred, “relies upon[,] indeed requires second-rate raw materials,” grapes alleged to be inherently neutral in both pH and personality and unresponsive to environmental vicissitudes. Developments over just the past decade have demolished those assertions. A seminal impetus was Jesús Barquín’s collaboration with Dirk Niepoort on their inaugural unfortified 2016 Vino Blanco, so star power might have had a small influence. But since 2008, Barquín’s Equipo Navazos had rocketed from invisibility, to high profile, bearing the reputation of Sherry aloft.

Today, unfortified Palomino bottlings represent the leading edge of regional revival and a rediscovery of site specificity whose recognition in an era before fortification had resulted in hierarchical vineyard classification now mooted for revival. Wines nothing like which existed ten years ago—from, among others, the Blanco brothers, Bodegas Estévez, Muchada-Leclapart, Louis Perez, and Primitivo Collantes—are making waves internationally, and Palamino’s reputational rescue is rippling out to those few other places where this grape is planted, as witness its leading role in influential ex-sommelier Rajat Parr’s Scythian Wine Co., founded in 2021 with a mission to reclaim Los Angeles’ viticultural heritage.

Inherently ignoble?

The examples adduced could easily be multiplied. So, should we reject the notion of inherent superiority? That might be too extreme. But, as a working hypothesis, it would be better to discount past prejudice, remaining open to and exploring any grape’s vinous potential in the light of our rapidly changing climatic conditions. Can it be mere coincidence that so many grapes long deemed workhorses but revealed as thoroughbreds are late-ripening and acid-retentive? If those are among traits that, exacerbated by high yields, contributed to their low regard, they’re features in the face of global warming.

As for assumptions that productivity plus ubiquity signals inferiority, those should certainly be rejected, since reducing yields is an experiment open to any winegrower willing to tolerate modest financial risk—risk that may pay off spectacularly, if prices of wines from Grüner Veltliner, Silvaner, Welschriesling, Aligoté, Carignan, or Palomino are at all indicative. And as growers reassess the potential of traditional grapes, it is essential they bear in mind the qualitative variation among genetically distinctive selections and clones, recognizing that poor performance may be due to mutational and selective differences, not to cépage identity per se. Retire no workhorses without serious deliberation! 

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Do grape varieties have intrinsic characters that come through time and place, asks Benjamin Lewin MW. Or does typicity simply follow fashion?

If grapes or place have intrinsic character, typicity and fashion should be the absolute antitheses of one another. But any review of the history of winemaking, even over short periods, shows that typicité (as the French call it) faithfully follows fashion. So, do grape varieties have intrinsic characters that come through time and place? Does typicité exist? Does even terroir exist,  at least in the sense of conveying unique properties to the wine? As a practical corollary, is it reasonable for an AOP to insist in its agrément on conformance  to some idealized view of its character?

There may be no simple answer—indeed, the answer may depend on the prism of the grape variety through which you examine the question. At one extreme, take indigenous varieties that have never spread beyond their origins. Certainly, in many cases (perhaps most), this is because the variety does not make interesting enough wine for growers in other areas to try it out. If it has a typicity, it is uninteresting. 

On the other hand, there are varieties that make fantastic wines in their places of origin, but attempts to propagate them elsewhere have never been successful. Take Nebbiolo: Nothing has ever been produced anywhere else in the world, not even really elsewhere in Piedmont, to match the great Barolos and Barbarescos. Here is a unique match between place and variety that defines the concept of typicity.

Take Sangiovese in Tuscany: It makes great wine in Montalcino, excellent wine in Chianti Classico, and good wine in Montepulciano. But even Antinori’s attempt to produce Sangiovese on Napa Valley’s Atlas Mountain did not produce wine to rival Antinori’s own results  in Tuscany. Given the past decade of efforts to improve the quality of Chianti Classico—first with the 2000 project  to improve clonal varieties, then with the introduction of a new top level,  gran selezione, intended to produce world-class wines—it may be an open question whether the differences between Chianti Classico and Montalcino are a demonstration of intrinsic effects of terroir on typicity  or due to constraints of history. 

Certainly, there are differences  even, for example, within the area of Montalcino, with some wines showing that faintly savage, savory character that for me is the typicity of Sangiovese  but others tending more toward deep, chocolaty overtones. Of course, that brings up another question. Let’s accept for the moment that there is a typicity  to each grape variety, at least if it is not grown under extreme circumstances (such as very hot or very cold places,  or very dry or very wet places). It is always possible to destroy typicity  with extremes of winemaking, lashings of new oak being the most obvious technique. 

Proof or refutation?

At the other extreme, we might ask whether the “international variety” is  the ultimate proof of typicity (character comes through, independent of time and place) or the ultimate refutation (the variety can be grown anywhere without any particular affinity for one place, and its character depends on each place).  In the case of Cabernet Sauvignon, perhaps the best-known international variety, fashion may play as important  a role as any intrinsic character. You might say that fashion drives—perhaps even created—the concept of the international variety, because what else was the impetus to grow the variety in places far from its origins but an attempt to jump on a fashion?

When Cabernet Sauvignon was first grown in Napa Valley in the early 1970s, the basic concept was to repeat its success in Bordeaux by producing the same sort of wine. After the Judgment of Paris success in 1976, opinion moved to the view that Napa could produce a different sort of wine, richer and fruitier. After the 1982 vintage in Bordeaux heralded the start of warmer vintages, Bordeaux moved to imitate Napa, with later harvests producing wines richer, fuller, and less overtly tannic than anything produced before.

Until the 1970s, Left Bank Bordeaux often had quite a herbaceous tang—delicious in a top vintage but admittedly sometimes out of hand in cooler vintages. Herbaceousness was regarded as part of the DNA of the variety. Today, if you mention the word “herbaceous”  to a winemaker in Bordeaux, he will wrinkle up his nose—if he does not actually throw you out of the château. The driving force for Cabernet Sauvignon today is the fashion for phenolic ripeness. It’s not unfair to say that differences in styles are due mostly to differences in the concept of exactly what ripeness means, just how far to go.

I take the view that at the extreme  of ripeness, all grape varieties tend  to taste the same: very fruity, jammy, with high-toned aromatics. At the extreme of overripeness, Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz (rather than Syrah,  since the New World is where most of  the extremely ripe Syrah-based wines are found), Merlot, Grenache, and even Zinfandel all have a similar character. For people who complain that these wines have lost typicity, I would say that they do have typicity, but it is no longer varietal typicity. It is the über-typicity of superripeness, which subsumes all else.

Considering their genetic relationship, perhaps it is not surprising that Sauvignon Blanc has undergone much of the same transition as Cabernet Sauvignon—from overtly herbaceous historically in Sancerre, to fruity, even  in extreme cases to exotic fruits such  as passion fruit, in New Zealand. Here you could define typicity in terms of  the aromatic molecules associated  with the variety. Herbaceousness is  due to methoxypyrazines (synthesized  in the grape), while tropical characters come from volatile thiols (formed during fermentation from odorless precursors that are typical of the variety). Methoxypyrazine levels are controlled by ripeness at harvest; thiol levels  can be influenced by choice of yeast. What appears to be a range of typicities, even opposing typicities, is in fact due to the balance between these two types of compounds, both intrinsic to the variety. So, what price typicity? 

Does a whiff of petrol identify the essential character of Riesling, or is it  a flaw? It’s created in Riesling by TDN (trimethyl-dihydronaphthalene), which is rarely found in grapes but develops  in the bottle by slow chemical actions. Environmental conditions, such as temperature and water supply, influence its production. It has, in fact, become more typical of Riesling in recent years, since the change in climatic conditions  has resulted in earlier development of TDN, in the first few years after release rather than after decades. Here is a case where climate change has not so much changed typicity as enhanced it. Of course, the occurrence of petrol is  not always popular: I believe there is a research project at Geisenheim to breed Riesling that does not develop TDN.  I guess this accepts the view that petrol is part of the typicity or Riesling but has the objective of changing that typicity.

Chardonnay is in many respects  the antithesis of Sauvignon Blanc or Riesling: a chameleon with little typicity, its character is influenced more by winemaking than anything else. Chardonnay can be lean and even green, and quite acidic; it can be fat and buttery; or it can taste more like a forest than a wine. Malolactic fermentation is a major influence: When blocked, the wine can be lean and linear; when pushed to extremes, the wine can taste of popcorn. Maturation in stainless steel favors the lean style. The effects of maturation  in oak depend greatly on how much  new oak is used, because Chardonnay is like a sponge in absorbing the character  of the oak. Perhaps, ironically, nothing typifies Chardonnay’s lack of typicity more than the ABC movement a  while back: Anything But Chardonnay presupposes that Chardonnay has distinct typicity, but the movement  was more a protest against fashion  than an opinion about the variety.

Place or taste?

Is the concept of varietal typicity intrinsically in conflict with the concept of typicity of place? Doesn’t the idea  that a variety has typicity imply that its character rises above place? This might imply that the so-called international varieties were chosen because their typicity can be expressed in many places. I would suggest that the way their character has changed with worldwide propagation argues against this idea  but leaves open the possibility that there is typicity for each place, at least when  a particular variety is grown there.

When we talk about typicity of place, or the dominance of terroir, which amounts to much the same thing, of course we turn to Burgundy, where the concept more or less originated. Pinot Noir and Chardonnay are accepted as the varieties par excellence to display effects of terroir. There are far too  many cases of adjacent vineyards that consistently produce different results  to argue with the concept. Of course, these differences are overlaid by the style of each producer.

Yet changes in white Burgundy cast some doubt on the notion of  a unique match between place and variety. Meursault used to be known for producing the fattest and most buttery wines of the Côte de Beaune. It is actually quite a long time since I have had a Meursault in this classic style; today, Meursault is more inclined to be lean and mineral. In fact, they even talk about le matchstick in Meursault to describe a tendency to show gunflint. This is due to changes in winemaking that reflect a collective change in the view of what constitutes typicity.

A constructivist view might be  that typicity is a concept reflecting  no more than the taste of the observer.  It is more than that, but I would add  time as a contributory factor in addition to place and variety. The effects of  time are more dramatic in the past  two decades owing to climate change.  In fact, the concept of typicity in its classic formulation rather implies  a constant range of external conditions, but climate change shows that it is  more a snapshot of the effects of place on variety in a given set of conditions—subject, of course, to the current fashion in winemaking. 

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Simon J Woolf on the long history, recent revival, and stylistic variations of the once-endangered, intensely tannic Friulian red grape variety, Pignolo, which has found a new audience of passionately obsessive advocates both inside and outside the northeastern Italian region.

Is there anywhere on earth with the same extraordinary richness of vine biodiversity as Italy? If there is, I haven’t found it. Estimates as to the number of native Vitis vinifera cultivars range from a conservative 377 (Robinson, Harding, and Vouillamoz, Wine Grapes, 2012), through the low 500s (Ian d’Agata, Native Wine Grapes of Italy, 2014), to somewhere in the 2,000s (anecdotal but certainly not impossible, if one includes non-commercialized varieties).

A good number of the country’s ancestral cultivars have fallen by the wayside over the years. In many cases, abandonment was probably more than justified: In an age when a lot of countries produce a significant wine surplus, who needs high-yielding, neutral varieties? But the 20th-century obsession with quantity, mechanization, and efficiency may have led to the throwing out of some wheat with the chaff. 

Pignolo is a case in point. This thick-skinned, small-berried, and low-yielding red native of northeasterly Friuli Venezia Giulia came perilously close to extinction. After a documented history of at least 700 years in the region, only a few rows of vines survived by the middle of the 20th century. By the 1970s, Pignolo could no longer be considered commercially viable. The story of how and why the variety recovered is as fascinating as its wines are superlative. 

A few facts

Today, Friuli harbors roughly 80ha (200 acres) of Pignolo—a fourfold increase in plantings from two decades ago, according to Wine Grapes. Apart from a single number of vines in research vineyards in California and a small plot in southern Brazil, it does not exist anywhere else. 

No conclusive DNA analysis has yet been undertaken, and the exact parentage of the variety is unknown. It is very likely, however, that it’s related to other white or red natives of the region, including some such as Aghedene or Vulpea, which are no longer around to tell their tale. Through Vulpea, there may even be a link with Prosecco’s Glera—even if this is an association that is hardly welcomed by Pignolo’s band of producers and wine fans. Friuli’s agency for rural development, ERSA, is currently engaged in DNA research, and conclusive evidence may soon be available. The grape’s likely birthplace is around Buttrio (Colli Orientali), with the Rosazzo subregion seen as its “grand cru.” Confusion persisted until the late 20th century between the true Pignolo and another historically co-planted variety now known to be Pignola Valtellinese. Producers such as Le Vigne di Zamò can point to historic vintages made from old vines where there is a clear influence from Pignola. Generally, this accidental field blend is avoided today.

Pignolo’s vinous signature consists of high acidity and prodigious tannins, with high alcohol becoming increasingly the norm. When young, it can show taut and lively red-berry fruit, which tends to morph into a broader, more plummy character as it ages. Wild, gamey aromas are something of a stock in trade, too. Yields are low to very low. The vine itself is extremely vigorous, but it doesn’t put its energy into producing grapes—one of many reasons why growers fell out of love with Pignolo, in an age when commercial reality increasingly trumped the quality imperative. A characteristic of the wine is that it is not only suitable for long aging but usually demands it. Many of its 70 or so exponents choose to mature their Pignolo for five to ten years before release. In this respect, Pignolo fits into a similar paradigm as varieties such as Nebbiolo, Sagrantino, Aglianico, or Nerello Mascalese. This is true not just of its enological characteristics but also of its quality. With age, Pignolo typically becomes thrillingly complex and majestic in structure, yet it always retains a burst of bright acids that mitigate its girth.

Rescued from extinction 

Pignolo has followed a strange trajectory over the years. As documented in exhaustive detail by author Ben Little in his book Pignolo: Cultivating the Invisible (reviewed in WFW 75, pp.58–59), the variety appears to have been revered as long ago as the 14th century. There are various records over the centuries that show that Pignolo wine was typically sold for a higher price than most other wines from the region. 

But opinion started to change by the second half of the 19th century. The Associazione Agraria Friulana, an institution that mounted exhibitions of Friuli’s varied agricultural produce, included Pignolo in its exhibition catalog in 1863. Four years later, there were already voices of dissent, claiming that the variety displayed imbalances and implying that its commercial worth was open to question. It no longer featured in the 1867 catalog. An agronomist asked to prepare a list of recommended varieties for planting in Friuli in 1901 notably didn’t include Pignolo either. 

By the early 20th century, phylloxera and oidium had wreaked havoc in Friuli, as they did across virtually all European wine regions. Replanting programs began in earnest in 1921, but unsurprisingly Pignolo did not form any part of them. Worse was to come. In 1970, a new European Economic Community regulation (number 2005/70) formalized the permitted grape varieties across Friuli Venezia Giulia. And due to what Little describes as an administrative error, Pignolo was excluded. In other words, henceforth it was illegal even to plant it.

To make matters worse, one of the most important remaining Pignolo vineyards of the time came close to destruction. The vines at the Abbazia di Rosazzo—effectively Pignolo’s spiritual home—had become so critically mismanaged by its custodian and priest “Don” Luigi Nadalutti that only two vines survived into the 1970s. Was Pignolo about to depart this planet? It certainly seemed so. 

That the plant survived at all was in large part down to a trio of determined vignerons who had their interest piqued—and also due to the Abbazia’s previous vineyard caretakers, the Casasola family, who had planted their own 100 Pignolo vines in 1929. Luigi Moschioni, grandfather of the current winemaker Michele Moschioni, received some cuttings as a gift from Domenico “Menut” Casasola in 1947 and set the family on a journey that would eventually result in them becoming one of Pignolo’s most important exponents. Similarly, Girolamo Dorigo (now in his 80s and long since retired) took an interest in Pignolo in 1969 when he read about it in a book. As Ben Little puts it, “By the late 1960s, with its general absence in the field, Pignolo had taken on a more mythical character.” Dorigo also received cuttings from Menut and developed a small vineyard of around 1,500 vines by 1973—an activity that was then completely illegal thanks to EEC regulation 2005/70.

The Abbazia’s rundown vineyard was finally taken into care in 1979 by a young winemaker named Walter Filiputti. He would later become a pivotal figure in Friulian wine and is now also a well-known author. In just three years, Filiputti managed to clone cuttings from the remaining two vines to create a vineyard of 2,200 plants. The Zamò family came on-board in 1981, continuing the management of the abbey’s vineyards together with Filiputti. The variety had been saved, although it would be a slow road toward stability. Michele Moschioni says that “after the initial flurry of excitement [in the 1970s], Pignolo fell into oblivion again as everyone got into Pinot Grigio and Sauvignon Blanc.” It wasn’t until the early 2000s that anything like a groundswell of interest emerged—and this is when most of the current vineyard surface was planted. Little draws attention to this, noting that the relatively young age of most of the vineyards is a quality factor. Several growers, notably Girolamo Dorigo, have remarked on the equilibrium that Pignolo vineyards seem to gain only from around 15 years of age.

Surmaturation and vinification 

A considerable challenge with Pignolo is picking the right moment to harvest. With tannins that could wake the dead, the skins and seeds need to attain a high degree of ripeness before most winemakers would dare to vinify. Michele Moschioni grappled with this issue in the early 1990s. On his way back from VinItaly in 1992, he visited the iconic Valpolicella and Amarone producer Giuseppe Quintarelli. His advice was to try maturing the grapes a little more by air-drying them in bunches after harvest, as a means to soften the tannins. Moschioni also gained experience working with Amarone producer Romano Dal Forno before putting the surmaturazione technique into practice with his Pignolo. This has effectively created two schools of thought in Friuli. There are those who embraced the surmaturazione technique and those who have always steered clear of it. Fans have historically included Paolo Rodaro, Castello Santanna, Tunella, and Collavini. The case against surmaturazione is that, bearing in mind that Pignolo can easily reach 15% potential alcohol when harvested, the use of dried grapes further increases concentration and alcohol to a level that may become oppressive. It can also impart a slight sweetness to the finish, via the extra grams of residual sugar that result from concentration. 

Attitudes seem to be shifting, with even former surmaturazione stalwarts like Moschioni backing off it considerably in recent years. Perhaps this isn’t a surprise given the run of ever warmer vintages over the last ten years. In many other respects, the idea of what Pignolo is supposed to be seems to have remained consistent across the past few decades and the majority of its producers. The grape lends itself to producing a hugely structured, concentrated wine built for long aging. Little remarks that Pignolo has “all of the requirements to make an outstanding, evolutionary red,” adding, “Its evolutionary capacity is beyond anything [else] that exists in the vineyards of Friuli Venezia Giulia, or of any other red grape variety in Italy.” 

But is this the only possible path? Is there really no space for early-drinking Pignolo, perhaps vinified without oak or even using whole-bunch fermentation to tame the texture? It could be said that many modern-day Pignolo producers are stuck in the 1990s Parker groove, having eagerly migrated to barrique in place of botte grande when they saw more potential to soften and mature the grape’s tough tannins. Moschioni experienced what he describes as a “game-changer” in 2004, when Robert Parker Jr awarded his 1999 Pignolo 95 points. He still has a copy of the original printed Wine Advocate newsletter, which he proudly shows to visitors. Perhaps it’s not surprising that he and many of his colleagues have adhered to the style that brought them initial success in the US. The challenge is that barriques add their own tannic thumbprint, not to mention potential aroma or flavor components when new vessels are used. It can easily become overbearing.

A small number of growers have innovated in different ways. In the Collio, where Pignolo is still not approved as a grape for DOC wines, the Radikon and Gravner families both have almost a decade’s experience vinifying the variety using radically different methodologies. Gravner produces a brooding, monolithic wine with stunning fruit by fermenting in Georgian qvevris, followed by additional aging in 5,000-liter (1,320 US gallon) barrels and in bottle. His aging regime now extends to 14 years after the vintage, with the 2007 currently on sale. Radikon uses only large-format barrels, and unlike Gravner, vinifies and bottles without any added sulfites. Its “Pignoli” (a misspelling designed to get around the variety’s banned status in Collio) presents like a super-mature Barolo, with thrilling dried fruit, leather, and herb characters. It is also released very late, with 2010 the current vintage on the market.

For those who miss fruit focus in what are usually heavily matured and oaked wines, look no further than Oliviero Visintini. A passionate advocate of biodynamics based in Colli Orientali, Visintini is perhaps the only grower who has so far tried both fermenting and aging Pignolo solely in clay. Using modern terra-cotta amphorae made in Tuscany, he has spent the past few vintages playing with different lengths of skin contact. His 2017, which stayed eight months in the terra-cotta vessels, is stunning in its bright fruit-forward profile. It lacks nothing in terms of structure, and has playful acidity and endless nuances. Most interestingly, it is already accessible in a way that few of the more conventionally grown or vinified examples come close to achieving. And it shows that other treatments are possible with this quirky grape.

Still, most Pignolo is produced in what could be described as a more classical manner. For lovers of these big but beautiful wines, the go-to producers include the aforementioned Moschioni and Dorigo, Le Vigne di Zamò, and Adriano Gigante. Those looking for a less interventionist approach to the winemaking will be well served by Bressan, which makes a superbly expressive example from very old vines in Friuli Isonzo, or Borgo San Daniele, whose often muscular and always supremely focused Arbis Ròs has been made from 100 percent Pignolo since 2007. (Previously it was a blend with Cabernet Franc.) Although Ronchi di Cialla is better known for its elegant, terroir-driven Schioppettino from a cool valley in Friuli Colli Orientali, the Rapuzzi brothers have now released half a dozen vintages of Pignolo. Typically, their reading is understated and—relatively speaking—delicate.

Little puts forward an interesting concept about Pignolo aging in his book. His conceit is that the legally defined term riserva loses all meaning when it comes to a wine such as Pignolo. A red wine from one of Friuli’s DOC or IGT classifications currently gains riserva status if it is released after two years. But this would be infanticide for most Pignolos. The vast majority of producers release after a minimum of five years. Little has also singled out a clutch of six producers that have release schedules of more than a decade after the vintage. They are Bressan, Conte d’Attimis Maniago, Gigante, Gravner, Le Vigne di Zamò, and Radikon. He categorizes this type of wine as il raro—effectively, the rarest of the rare. While obviously not a legal term, there are signs that it is being embraced by producers. Castello Santanna and Visintini reached this status when both released their 2011 vintages in November 2021. Several more wineries have releases planned that will put them in il raro territory, including Jermann and Moschioni. The concept is fascinating, in that it shows how inadequate Friuli’s current wine-classification framework is when it comes to this single-minded grape variety.

The future of Pignolo

Pignolo has a habit of luring in all who encounter it. Little—himself unsuspectingly launched into a five-year research project culminating in his book and a series of tastings and workshops—talks of it being “a fisher of souls.” Certainly it has become an obsession for many winemakers who swallowed the lure. For just about all of the 70-odd producers of Pignolo, though, it is barely commercial. Few have more than a hectare or so of the variety, or make more than a couple of thousand bottles a year. Michele Moschioni is almost in a league of his own, with 3.5ha (8.5 acres) and production at between 6,000 and 7,000 bottles a year. Saša Radikon confirms that it’s love or fascination that drives most, saying, “No one’s making money from Pignolo right now. And once people do start making money from it, the quality will probably go down.”

However, Little is optimistic about Pignolo’s future over the coming decade, saying, “The quality of the wine is rising all the time because the vineyards are maturing.” He points out that many top producers, including Gravner, Radikon, and Gigante, planted as recently as 1998 and notes that “their first vintages (2003, 2004) were produced from extremely young vines.” In his book, he also lists a further half-dozen producers that have recently planted. Walter Filiputti has also returned to the stage, as consultant winemaker for Nero Magis, whose debut Pignolo Riserva 2015 was just released in 2021. While Pignolo is never likely to become a mass-produced crowd-pleaser, its renaissance still has scope to broaden. A realistic goal would certainly be that it becomes regarded as one of Italy’s greatest red wines, if not the world’s.

Interest has evolved beyond the winemaker community, too. In 2020, an entrepreneurial young wine lover named Alessandro Cossa opened a wine bar in Udine named Enoteca al Pignolo. His inspiration came from the kinship he, as a Friulian, felt with this native from the plant kingdom. “Pignolo reminds me of us,” he says. “It has the same character: It’s a bit hard and closed and needs time before it shows its best.” Nonetheless, the enoteca is welcoming and lively, with Pignolo available by the glass. Little notes simply, “There is no banality with Pignolo; you’ll either like it or you won’t. Physically it will grab you—the tannins will leave their mark on you!” He’s not wrong.

This article was first published in June 2022 in issue 76 of The World of Fine Wine.

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Georgian wine is best known for the qvevri clay pots used by some of its most celebrated producers. But the array of fascinating, utterly distinctive indigenous Georgian grape varieties also deserve much wider renown, says Jim Clarke.

Thanks to local geography, Georgia has been relatively isolated for millennia—a condition that has lent many unique traits to its wines. The one most apparent to wine drinkers, especially those who appreciate white wines, are the qvevri—clay amphora, set into the earth, wherein Georgians have traditionally fermented their wines. White wines as well as reds are fermented on their skins, creating deeply colored “amber” wines with a depth of flavor and tannins, even in the whites. As a technique, however, it largely obscures another unique aspect of the country’s vinous story: the grapes.

“I call the qvevri the great equalizer,” says Lisa Granik, a Master of Wine and author of The Wines of Georgia. “The wines taste not of the qvevri per se, but of the qvevri process, rather than using the qvevri to enhance the characteristics of the grape, or even the grape in its terroir.” Granik compares it to the way new oak barrels can overwhelm the character of a grape in conventional Western winemaking.

525 Georgian grape varieties

Thanks again to the country’s isolation, there are an estimated 525 indigenous Georgian grape varieties, so there is a great deal that could be explored. Many, however, are more often found in surveys than bottles. Diversity shrank post-phylloxera, a process that only accelerated during the Soviet period; disease resistance and yields became the priority, largely destined at the time for sparkling and semi-sweet wines. Today about 75 percent of the vineyards are planted to white grapes, and most of that is Rkatsiteli. Saperavi dominates among the reds, and both are particularly prevalent in the hotter, eastern regions of Kakheti and Kartli, which are much more densely planted than the regions closer to the Black Sea. 

But other varieties persisted in family vineyards and out-of-the-way corners, and several programs, perhaps most notably the LEPL Scientific Research Centre of Agriculture in Jighuara, are working to propagate a greater diversity of vines. Granik says the urge to recover and expand the varieties planted stems from an interest in biodiversity as well as an expanded range of offerings. 

Beyond the qvevri, the names of Georgian grape varieties stand in the way of greater recognition abroad, and not just because of their extraordinary density of consonants. Certain names recur in different variations across the country. There are, for example, six different varieties of Mstvane, none related to each other, and each named for the region where it was first recognized. “At this stage,” says Rezi Tsetskhladze of Vazisubani Estate, “the varieties most known in America are the ones most planted in Georgia: Rkatsiteli, Mtsvane, Kisi, Khikhvi, and Saperavi from eastern Georgia, and Tsolikouri and Tsitska from Western Georgia.” 

Field blends would have been typical for most small, family producers, and certain combinations are becoming typical: Rkatsiteli and Mstvane, or Tsitska and Tsolikouri, for example. So while many of the wines reaching export markets are varietally labeled, wine drinkers exploring more closely will encounter a number of blends that also make it harder to isolate and understand the character of individual varieties.

“For me, Kakhuri Mtsvane [Mtsvane from Kakheti] is an exciting grape variety,” Tsetskhladze says. “It has an outstanding potential to adapt to different winemaking technologies, such as white winemaking technology and skin contact for amber wine. It gives aromatic, structured and full wines. It has a very good aging potential.”

Despite their almost total domination of exports, qvevri wines make up only five percent of Georgia’s wine production, so the chance to explore the character of these grapes is out there. Among the qvevri wines, some varieties show themselves more forcefully than others. 

“Rkatsiteli is super malleable because it’s subtle,” says Christy Canterbury, Master of Wine and Georgian Wine Ambassador in the U.S. “It’s not aromatically dynamic, so the qvevri does a lot to give it texture, aroma, color, etc. It’s like Chardonnay in that it’s more susceptible to the whims of the winemaker. Whereas Kisi says, ‘you’re not messing with me.’ It retains its identity, it’s exotic—much more tropical, with riper flavors that stand up to qvevri a little bit more. And then Mtsvane has citrus and herbal notes on top and a similar body to Rkatsiteli.”

Among reds, as a teinturier grape Saperavi makes a powerful, dark, tannic wine, but some other varieties yield much different styles of wine. “Saperavi is mostly found in Kakheti and Kartli,” Canterbury says, “but once you get west of Kartli you tend to get varieties that do better in cooler and wetter environments.” Among these Canterbury singles out Aleksandrouli and Aladasturi, comparing them to pale, cool-climate Pinot Noir, and then for contrast, Delchavi “which is amped up on everything: dense, chunky, gamey, chewy.”

Ancient beginnings

Even if these are still unfamiliar names, Georgia’s indigenous varieties received some extra attention in March when Science magazine published a study revealing that, although Georgia has been archaeologically associated with the earliest beginnings of winemaking, the Caucasus region shares the birth of winegrapes in the form of Vitis vinifera with the Levant. 

Furthermore, thanks to Georgia’s isolation, the latter seems to be the source of the world’s most planted grape varieties—all the familiar names we know from France, Italy, and so forth. “That means the grape varieties that were in the Caucasus stayed there,” Granik says. “And that to me is more interesting, because it means these varieties are ancient, and have adapted and developed to their very different terroirs. And that just highlights their uniqueness, right?”

The post Georgian grape varieties: In an ancient league of their own appeared first on World Of Fine Wine.

Hybrid vines have a checkered past, respected for their cold-hardiness and disease resistance, but suspected of being less natural and giving inferior wines. Now, for many reasons—from climate change and concerns over sustainability, to scientific advances and a more open-minded new generation of producers and consumers—they have a much brighter future. Jim Clarke explains.

Very good in its way 

Is the Verzenay, 

Or the Sillery soft and creamy; 

But Catawba wine 

Has a taste more divine, 

More dulcet, delicious and dreamy. 

—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “Ode to Catawba Wine” 

Longfellow’s ode, penned in 1854, expresses a sentiment rarely heard since, at least not among drinkers of fine wine. In the mid-19th century, Nicholas Longworth’s sparkling méthode champenoise Catawba from Ohio was the most popular wine in America; by 1859 his production was twice that of the entire state of California. Longworth, a lawyer by trade and the state’s wealthiest man by 1813, had turned to winemaking in an effort to lure his fellow citizens away from the evils of distilled spirits. After struggling to grow European vinifera varieties, he planted Catawba, a Vitis labrusca-based hybrid, in 1825. Once he mastered the production of sparkling wine, his fame spread rapidly. Now, almost 200 years later, hybrids are again attracting the attention of wine growers in many parts of the world. 

Europe is vinously diverse, of course, but not vitis-ly so—that is to say, it is home to just one species of grapes, Vitis vinifera, among the 70 or so worldwide. It is, however, the only species to birth a tradition of winemaking. Hybrids are interspecies crosses, an initially innocuous, largely accidental result of the Columbian exchange that was to be deeply explored when other aspects of that same exchange made their effects felt in the vineyards of Europe.

Catawba appears to be the result of one of those chance encounters, as was Alexander, the grape used in the US’s first commercial wines, and Concord, which was isolated from a set of seedlings by Ephraim Wales Bull in Concord, Massachusetts, in 1843. It was just a decade or so later that pest and disease issues would drive grape growers to pursue hybridization, a motivation that has returned with vigor over the past few decades.

Phylloxera is the best known of the plagues that North America sprang on wine growers in the second half of the 19th century. The eventual solution for phylloxera, grafting European vinifera vines onto American rootstocks, carries little or no negative associations compared to, say, spraying the vines with chemical treatments, but the latter was necessary to treat two other major North American challenges to beset European grape varieties: downy and powdery mildew.

For a time, however, cross-breeding American and European vine species together seemed a logical solution to all three of these concerns. Grape breeders in France, the US, and elsewhere turned their attention to the problem, and names like Seyve, Villard, Baco, and Seibel live on in some of their namesake grapes. In the US, figures such as ES Rogers and TV Munson in Texas also attempted to address these issues. Ironically, Munson’s fame today—such as it is—is tied to the defeat of phylloxera, but via vine grafting rather than breeding.

Two French scientists, Jules Emile Planchon and Pierre-Marie-Alexis Millardet, and an American, Charles Valentine Riley, had hit upon the idea of using American rootstocks and grafting their vinifera vines onto them, but they had difficulty finding American vines that would tolerate the calcareous soils typical in many French wine regions. They turned to Munson for advice, and he sent them cuttings of four different Vitis species that had proven themselves in similar high-pH soils in Texas and neighboring areas.

These proved successful, and Munson was made a Chevalier de Mérite Agricole for his work in saving the French wine industry. Meanwhile, Millardet went on to discover that copper and sulfur sprays were effective in treating and preventing downy mildew. Regular spraying of Bordeaux mixture, a combination of the two together with lime and water, became common practice in vineyards around the world.

Despite these solutions, the newly introduced hybrid varieties persisted for quite some time, for they were not without their virtues. Some did indeed provide some of the disease resistance hoped for; some proved to thrive in colder climates; and many were vigorous and yielded generous amounts of grapes. France began to clamp down on their spread in the 1930s, legislating against their plantings in 1934 in the midst of planning the AOC system that would be enacted the following year.

At the time, established, known vinifera varieties were assumed to be timeless, and crossings of any sort, both intra- and interspecific, were assumed to be inferior. French/American hybrids almost entirely failed to find a home in the AOC system, the lone exception being Armagnac’s embrace of Baco 22A, a hybrid of Folle Blanche and Noah (itself a hybrid from two American species, Vitis labrusca and Vitis riparia).

Folle Blanche, long used in both Armagnac and Cognac, was particularly susceptible to black rot, another American import, and Baco 22A is resistant to the fungus. It made up more than 80 percent of Armagnac’s vineyards by the 1970s, but when effective fungicides became available, growers began turning to Ugni Blanc instead. Even though AOC rules had largely barred the door, French/American hybrids could still be found in as much as one third of France’s vineyards in the mid-1950s. Aside from the 1934 legislation, additional regulations instituted in 1955 and 1984 continued the effort. A handful—Chambourcin, Baco 22A and its cousin Baco Noir, Seyval Blanc, and a few others—persisted. 

Hybrids vines: Cold-hardy and disease-resistant but foxy?

Elsewhere in the world, they thrived more openly, enjoying relative freedom from legislation if not always a warm embrace from the public. They became popular with growers in New Zealand after phylloxera swept through the country, dominating there until Müller-Thurgau and later Sauvignon Blanc took over in the second half of the 20th century.

In Japan, Muscat Bailey A, a locally developed hybrid, has taken pride of place as a signature variety for Yamanashi, the country’s most productive wine-growing prefecture, and indeed across the country more broadly, alongside Koshu, a local Vitis vinifera variety. Its wines tend to have a red-fruited, somewhat candied character and sometimes struggle for structure on the palate.

Zenbei Kamakami bred Muscat Bailey A in 1927, and it traces its lineage from three species, vinifera (the Muscat in question being Muscat of Hamburg), labrusca, and lincencumii. There are more than 500ha (1,235 acres) planted in Japan today. American hybrids such as Niagara and Delaware are not uncommon in the country as well, and with Muscat Bailey A are permitted and promoted as typical grape varieties in several wine GIs (geographical indications), including Yamanashi, Osaka, and Yamagata.

One of the most intriguing hybrids I’ve encountered in Japan was in the Tokachi region of Hokkaido, an area better known as the center of Japan’s dairy production. In the 1950s, Kaneyasu Marutani, the mayor of the small town of Ikeda, got it into his head that wine production would help the struggling local economy. Under his auspices, a Grape Fanciers Association formed and began a breeding program that eventually created two red varieties, Kiyomai and Yamasachi, by crossing the local, cold-hardy Vitis amurensis grapes with a vinifera vine.

Despite a shared parentage, Kiyomai makes a paler, more acid-driven wine, while the latter is more deeply colored and tannic. Such are the vagaries of grape breeding, but they blend together well and create a solid, well-balanced wine. To my knowledge, neither has spread beyond Tokachi. 

Ikeda’s Grape Fanciers turned to local Vitis amurensis varieties because they could withstand temperatures as low as -31°F(-35°C); Tokachi is insulated from the snowfall that can so dominate other parts of Hokkaido but achieves some deep chills in winter.

Breeders continued to explore hybrid varieties’ potential for disease resistance, but cold-hardiness grew in demand in the second half of the 20th century, and hybrid varieties worldwide became increasingly associated with areas too cold for vinifera vines, especially in North America and northern Europe. In the 1960s and ’70s, German breeders introduced Regent and Solaris; the latter has become known as “the Swedish grape” and is the most-planted wine grape there.

The Vitis amurensis species originated in Siberia and parts of China where an ability to endure the cold was a necessity. Grape breeder Peter Hemstad, then a professor at the University of Minnesota, told me he was unimpressed with the species; cold-resistant it may be, but like Vitis vinifera it is susceptible to several of the grape diseases North America has shared with the world. Researchers in Germany and Hungary are still exploring its potential. Many of North America’s 25 native species are also accustomed to cold, subfreezing temperatures in winter—labrusca, riparia, and vulpina in particular. 

In the US, Elmer Swenson, inspired by TV Munson, began breeding grapes on his farm in Wisconsin in 1943, crossing established French/American hybrids with local Vitis riparia varieties; later he conducted some of his work at the University of Minnesota, which became a hotbed, if you will, for cold-climate grape breeding. By the 1990s, Vitis riparia became increasingly recognized as a premier source for cold-hardy breeding material.

In upstate New York, Cornell University’s Experimental Agricultural Station has also emerged as a leader in the field. From 2011 to 2016, faculty from both those universities and nine other institutions across the northern US took part in the USDA-funded Northern Grapes Project, a program designed to increase the quality, productivity, and marketability of these cold-hardy, hybrid grape varieties. 

Marketability is indeed an issue, and has been since the very beginning. Despite the success and praise heaped on Longworth’s sparkling Catawba, many wine-drinkers have found the characteristics of non-vinifera and hybrid varieties to present aesthetic challenges. Non-vinifera varieties often struggle with developing adequate tannins, and high acidity is also common.

But the most famous catch-all, negative descriptor for wines made from non-vinifera grapes is “foxiness.” Like “minerality,” it’s one of those descriptors that is accepted and recognized by experienced tasters, but poorly defined—“grapey,” musk, candied or wild strawberry, and bubble-gum notes are all associated with it. The New York Times says French critics were more specific, describing the resulting wines as smelling of “fox urine”—which, specific and clearly negative though it is, is probably an unenlightening description to most people. 

Foxiness is strongly associated with a few chemicals, most notably methyl anthranilate, commonly found especially but not exclusively in Vitis labrusca varieties. Methyl anthranilate is harmless and is actually regularly used industrially in food flavorings and the perfume industry, but some early attempts to rid French vineyards of hybrid varieties associated it with poison.

There is the slightest bit of truth to the accusation. Vitis labrusca varieties are rich in pectins—so much so that they give the pulp of the grape an internal structure; one can pop the skin off a labrusca grape and it can still have a round, fleshy globe. The inside of the wild, presumably labrusca grapes where I grew up in the Hudson Valley felt the way my childhood friends and I imagined an eyeball might. During fermentation, these pectins break down into methanol. Research conducted in the 1970s confirmed that during fermentation enzymatic activity in Concord grapes produced a high level of methanol, which is indeed toxic: 400–500ppm, compared to 100–200ppm in vinifera varieties.

The same seems to be true for a few other varieties, notably Isabella, which was once very popular in the former USSR. Some wines are still marketed under that name, reputedly made with bulk wine from Brazil, where the variety is still heavily planted, or from other grapes and flavored with methyl anthranilate directly. Controlling and limiting levels of methanol in wines made from these varieties is managed during fermentation, so methanol poisoning is not a legitimate concern these days, but these particular hybrids rarely make it to the winery in any case. Most of Brazil’s Isabella grapes, like Concord in the US, go to making jams, jellies, and juices, where the “grapey” quality of methyl anthranilate is prized rather than despised.

Foxiness aside, hybrid varieties have largely been relegated to second-tier status, to be grown only where vinifera can’t. A few varieties have managed on occasion to crack open the door for consideration alongside traditional vinifera grapes. Seyval Blanc, developed by Bertille Seyve Jr in 1898, has demonstrated an ability to make quality wines, in particular traditional-method sparkling wines, as in the hands of Peter Hall at Breaky Bottom in Sussex, England (see WFW 76, pp.156–59). Vidal Blanc has taken a spot alongside Riesling as a favored grape for icewine production in Niagara, Canada.

In New York’s Finger Lakes, growing Vitis vinifera varieties was long considered an impossibility; the winters, it was believed, were too cold for the vines to survive. Dr Konstantin Frank, an immigrant from Ukraine with a PhD in viticulture and an understanding of cold-region viticulture, arrived in New York in 1951; seven years later, working with Charles Fournier at Gold Seal, he planted the first successful vinifera vineyards on the US East Coast.

While, in the past, wine tourism in the Finger Lakes often catered to drinkers with a taste for sweet, simple wines as long as the price was right, today the area draws serious wine drinkers looking for complex Rieslings, Cabernet Franc, and other classic vinifera varieties.

But hybrids persist; once one gets too far away from the moderating effects of the lakes themselves, growing vinifera can still be a challenge. Today, Catawba’s 864 acres (350ha) of vines still exceed the acreage of Riesling, the region’s signature variety. For most producers, however, vinifera means premium, and high-yielding hybrids fill in the lower price tiers of the portfolio. 

There is sometimes a hesitancy or sense of embarrassment in the New York wine industry when a hybrid grape comes in for praise that might otherwise have gone to a vinifera variety. For a number of years, I judged at the New York Wine Classic, a competition for the wines from across the state. It was not uncommon to hear behind-the-scenes expressions of regret or chagrin whenever a hybrid variety took Best in Class or the top award, the Governor’s Cup. But it does happen on occasion.

This year, Keuka Lake Vineyards Leon Millot, a wine I’ve often enjoyed, took Best Red Wine. (Their Vignoles is also excellent.) Misgivings arise not because the wines in question weren’t worthy, but rather because the generally accepted narrative is that hybrids are the past and vinifera varieties the future. Award-winning hybrids complicate that story.

Bringing hybrids forward 

That could be where one leaves the story of hybrids today—a curiosity. Hybrids are estimated to constitute less than 5 percent of the world’s vineyards. In western Europe, that figure falls to less than one percent, but Eastern Europe has been more open, thanks in part to Cold War-era interest in high-yielding varieties.

Almost half of Romania’s vineyards are believed to be planted to hybrids, and more than one fifth of Bulgaria’s. Right now, it is quite possible to be an open-minded wine drinker who tastes broadly and never be confronted with a wine made from a hybrid grape variety. They rarely grace the wine lists of restaurants outside of the regions they are grown, and not always within them; one must go looking for them, and the general consensus among serious wine drinkers is that they don’t merit the effort. But a handful of factors have combined to bring hybrids forward in a new manner—some predictable, some less so. 

The more foreseeable factor stems from the rise in interest in organic wine growing. Organic viticulture has increased tremendously over the past few decades—a trend that’s expected to continue and perhaps even accelerate. A Grandview Research study says the global market for organic wine, valued at $8.9 billion in 2021, is expected to grow at more than 10 percent annually through the end of the decade.

Because of their disease-resistant properties, many hybrid varieties can succeed in an organic environment far more easily than their vinifera counterparts. Some farms report that while they might spray fungicides or pesticides over a dozen times for vinifera varieties, hybrids can produce the same or better yields with only one or two sprayings—or even none at all. 

Interest in organics and sustainability lie not just in the purview of marketing and creating points of difference among wine brands. Governments have become increasingly involved, especially in Europe. France set out to reduce pesticide use across the entire agricultural sector by 50 percent between 2008 and 2018—a goal they failed to meet. Vineyards are the biggest offenders; according to the French Agricultural Ministry, vineyard land makes up 4 percent of farming land in the country, but uses 15 percent of all pesticides applied.

The EU has estimated that viticulture accounts for 40 percent of pesticide use across all European agriculture. As residential areas increasingly abut farms, residents are becoming more and more concerned about sprays and chemical applications drifting into neighborhoods and schoolyards.

The EU has also specifically called upon vineyards to reduce the use of Bordeaux mixture, that combination of copper sulfate, lime, and water that growers have been spraying on their vines to deal with downy mildew ever since Millardet came up with it in the 1880s.

Since 2018, regulations have reduced the allowable annual dose from 6kg (13lb) to 4kg (9lb) of copper per hectare, but a deeper concern lies in the excessive applications common in the mid-20th century; according to a report in Environmental Science and Technology magazine, amounts as high as 50kg per hectare (44lb per acre) were not atypical in some areas. The buildup of copper in the soils is believed to damage farmland and can leak into the water table, contaminating waterways and drinking water.

Organic growers were particularly incensed about the change. Bordeaux mixture is permitted under organic certification guidelines, and there are almost no effective organic alternatives for treating downy mildew. Conventional growers, who have a wider chemical toolkit at their disposal, nevertheless have to contend with the fact that most common vineyard pathogens regularly adapt and grow resistant to synthetic fungicides and pesticides, which must be reformulated frequently in order to keep up. Failure to keep up with the constantly evolving threat has caused availability challenges in recent years and has left some growers facing tough decisions and lost crops.

These issues put hybrid varieties into the conversation—not just for lesser-known wine regions, but for mainstream production in places like California, a point made to me by the late Andrew Walker, a professor at UC Davis, more than 15 years ago. Walker’s own work focused on yet another American pest, Pierce’s disease. His work on the subject, a 20-year process, culminated in the introduction of five new varieties, three red and two white, in 2019.

Given the slow-paced nature of grape breeding, the scientists involved approach their work with appropriately long-term views, and many, like Walker, saw the role hybrids could play in a world of organic and sustainable viticulture several decades ago. Grape breeder Bruce Reisch started at Cornell University in 1980 and has introduced ten wine-grape varieties during his tenure there. He says both disease resistance and cold-hardiness have always been goals for researchers at Cornell, but over time the emphasis has shifted more toward addressing disease pressures. Climate change has also exacerbated disease pressures in many areas, a process likely to continue.

Governments are now coming around. At the end of 2021, the European Union opened the door to allow wines from PDOs—official, registered wine appellations—to include hybrid grape varieties. It remains in the hands of the individual countries and appellations to decide which, if any, hybrids they would allow in their wines.

So, the process is gradual, but there is no lack of varieties for appellations and growers to choose from. Floreal, Vidoc, Voltis, and Artaban, developed by the French National Institute for Agronomic Research (INRA) and authorized for use in 2018, are just four of dozens of PIWI (pilzwiderstandfähig or “fungal-resistant”) varieties waiting and ready for their closeup. Austria has already authorized five hybrids for Qualitätswein production, and Bordeaux is considering experimental plantings. Nonetheless, legacy growers struggle for legal recognition in out-of-the-way areas such as Cévennes, where two old hybrids—Jacquez and Clinton—have lived on under the radar.

In less regulated areas such as the US, growers already face a bewildering number of options among hybrid varieties. Many of the classics—Baco Noir, Chambourcin, Delaware, and the like—are still around. These have the advantage of time; experienced growers and winemakers have seen these vines handle vintages of all sorts over the decades and know their ins and outs both in the vineyard and in the cellar.

There’s also been time to see where each performs best—Norton has found its home in the Midwest and mid-Atlantic states, for example. On the other hand, there is a concern among advocates for these older varieties that they’ve rarely been pushed to show their full potential. Best practices for producing truly premium wine styles may not yet be fully determined for some varieties, since production in previous decades often focused on accessibility.

At the other end of the timeline are the many new hybrids introduced over the past half-century, some as recently as this millennium. The most notable examples in the US, alongside Walker’s Pierce’s disease-resistant varieties, are those from Cornell and the University of Minnesota.

Traminette, for example, was originally intended to be a table grape. Bred by Herb Barrett at the University of Illinois in 1965, the seedlings were planted and studied at Cornell, which eventually released it for public use in 1996. It has since found popularity up and down the East Coast of the US. In 2006, Cornell released Valvin Muscat, Corot Noir, and Noiret. University of Minnesota’s Marquette, introduced in 2006, may be the great red hope of cold-climate North America. Its pedigree includes Pinot Noir, and its wines have been compared to Austrian reds and wines from the Loire Valley in character. The VitisGen project, with its second iteration launched in 2017, looks set to accelerate the development of new hybrids even further.

Explaining the parentage of modern hybrids is sometimes as complicated as explaining how a bus driver in St Louis stands 37th in line for the principate of Liechtenstein. Hybrids are birthing hybrids, with varieties that have never been graced with proper names proving loving parents to useful varieties like those I’ve just mentioned. Frontenac, another University of Minnesota red-wine grape, has the blood of eight different Vitis species in its veins. Released in 1996, it has also spawned two mutations on its own: Frontenac Gris and Frontenac Blanc.

Grape breeding in the past could have a “throw it against the wall and see what sticks” quality to it, but science, in particular a deeper understanding of the grape’s genome, has allowed breeders to select more carefully and better isolate desirable traits.

“We started out not knowing which genes give the best disease resistance,” Professor Reisch says, “but now the genome has been sequenced multiple times. We not only know which species and which individuals give us really good disease resistance, but we have names for these different genes and know what chromosome they’re on.”

Today, once a cross has been made, DNA from seedlings can be examined even before they’ve been planted to see which one has retained which traits; breeders can move forward more quickly and with confidence rather than planting seedlings and waiting years to see if Junior does indeed have Mom’s beautiful eyes.

Multiple genes for a given trait can also be layered together to make a vine’s disease resistance stronger and more flexible.

“If you just use one single gene for resistance,” Reisch says, “the chances are that, over the lifetime of a new vineyard, the pathogen will mutate and overcome that one gene just like these pathogens mutate and overcome fungicides. Fungicides are often good for only three or four years before the pathogens know a way around them. A mutation in the fungus is not likely to overcome three or four different genes for resistance all at once.”

This process holds true not just for disease resistance but also for aesthetic qualities—flavor characteristics, tannic structure, and so forth. There are, however, a great many more variables at play when determining wine quality. Seedlings that show what Reisch calls “hybrid characteristics,” overly green flavors, or are unworkably acidic can be eliminated from consideration early on, but the aesthetic qualities of a wine are subject to so many variables in the vineyard and cellar that prolonged research is still required on that front.

New hybrid producers and consumers and going native

The more surprising development, for all hybrids, old and new, is that there’s also a new and interested audience. Wine drinkers’ receptivity to new grape varieties has gone further than many would have predicted, breaking down the border between species; what’s good for Nerello is good for Noiret.

As seen with natural wines, wine drinkers—or at least some of them, typically the younger members of that set—are coming to accept and even embrace a wider range of flavors and textures in their wines—in their beverages as a whole, in fact. Many natural wines, as well as orange wines, sour ales, kombucha, and other beverages, offer taste characteristics that were once considered beyond the pale but are now stealing shelf space from more classical, more conservative expressions. In this context, a new generation of wine growers and winemakers is approaching hybrids from an artisanal standpoint that isn’t looking to the tourist with a sweet tooth as their customer.

On the production side, some sophisticated, trained palates with deep roots in traditional fine wine have gotten involved. In 2016, Master Sommelier Pascaline Lepeltier and winemaker Nathan Kendall made the first vintage of Chëpìka, a méthode ancestrale wine, using organically grown Delaware and Catawba grapes from the Finger Lakes. Two years later, they began making a still Catawba as well. Just prior to the advent of Covid, another Master Sommelier, David Keck, left Goodnight Hospitality, the Texas restaurant group he had founded, to return home to northern Vermont and grow wine. The result, Stella XIV, opened its doors this July.

Vermont has placed itself at the forefront of the artisanal hybrid wine scene. In 2015, Eric Asimov of the New York Times devoted his column to La Garagista, Deirdre Heekin’s project there, calling the wines “so soulful and delicious, they challenge crucial assumptions long taken for granted.” Heekins and husband Caleb Barber operate a multi-use farm, and grape growing is just one facet; underlying this arrangement are deeply held concepts about agricultural diversity that fit in squarely with the natural-wine aesthetic.

She works with modern hybrids, mostly from the University of Minnesota’s portfolio—La Crescent, Frontenac, Marquette—as well as a few others such as Brianna, and even some vinifera vines. One may find a certain irony in using grape varieties bred using cutting-edge science for natural-wine production, but while science has improved the efficacy of breeding programs, at their core the techniques used are not significantly dissimilar from the techniques of Munson, Seyve, and Villard. These are emphatically not genetically modified vines.

La Garagista’s first vintage was 2010; preceding them on the Vermont scene by a couple vintages was Shelburne Vineyards, which planted its first hybrids in 1998 and began making wine a decade later. In 2017, they introduced a second line, Iapetus, which adheres to a natural-wine approach and has rapidly expanded to become almost half of their production.

Winemaker Ethan Joseph says Vermont was an early adopter of the Minnesota hybrids, and Marquette in particular is a focus of Shelburne’s production alongside Louise Swenson and La Crescent. Marquette demonstrates the high acidity common to a number of hybrids.

“I’m never going to see a finished Marquette at 8 grams per liter TA,” Joseph says, “so that’s not my benchmark. But if I see it around 10 or 12, I can make a nice, balanced, drinkable dry Marquette. It’s about balance and ripeness of flavors. I use the broader wine world for my concept of what makes a good or exceptional wine, but I have to adjust that framework to the wines we’re making.”

This is normal practice; we don’t expect the same balance in a German Riesling that we do in a Bordeaux.

While at the artisanal wine level much of the talk about hybrid wines in the US is centered on the northeast, the West Coast is not missing out. In 2019, Matt Niess started farming a small Baco Noir vineyard on the Sonoma County coast. “After a couple of months working with these wines,” he says, “I thought, ‘Oh, my gosh, this is what everybody is talking about when they talk about disease resistance.’ No one really understands the magnitude. These vines are on the coast, they see a lot of fog; a river runs right along the vineyard, so there’s lots of humidity. It’s a high mildew area. I never have to spray these vines.”

Niess has since founded North American Press and is partnering with several other growers in different parts of northern California, trialing about 60 different hybrid varieties. He’s also collaborating with The Two Eighty Project, a program in San Francisco dedicated to introducing inner-city residents to community agriculture. In 2020, they took over farming at Alemany Farm, a small property owned by the city just south of the Mission District. The farm is home to a small vineyard with more than 100 heritage hybrid varieties.

Niess has clearly cast a wide net. He is excited to see how some of the TV Munson varieties do; Munson, after all, was working in Texas, and Niess says drought resistance was a trait the breeder was cultivating—a high priority given the current drought in California and the likelihood that water will become an increasingly scarce resource for vineyards. For that matter, controlling vigor is an issue with some of the varieties Niess is working with, but he says dry-farming limits that problem and encourages wine quality.

He is also optimistic about a few of the varieties currently more popular in the northeast, noting, for example, that Catawba’s high acidity and late ripening may turn out to be well suited to warmer climes, but he cautions that some of the Vitis labrusca varieties don’t do well on calcareous soils.

That being the case, some of the French/American hybrids such as Baco Noir or Leon Millot, bred with such soils in mind from Vitis riparia and Vitis rupestria varieties, may ultimately turn out best. “There are also native grapes in California,” he adds. “Let’s make a true California wine with our own, native California grapes. That’s one of my long-term projects.” California is home to two native species, Vitis californica and Vitis girdiana, which Niess hopes either to use directly or to breed into new varieties with that native connection.

Much of Niess’s inspiration, along with that of Heekins and several other producers I spoke with, reaches back to Italy, where local varieties proliferate with abandon.

“These smaller Italian growers who are trying to hold onto their native grapes and hang onto their heritage,” Niess says, “they really spurred my interest. What about here? What about the native grapes of North America?”

One could debate whether hybrids are truly native, but native species are indisputably part of their heritage. In this sense, the spread of artisanal hybrid wines in the US is a logical extension of the locavore movement. I’ve written in these pages previously (see WFW 42, pp.102–07) about the contradiction inherent in many locavore, farm-to-table restaurants that then serve, typically, French or other European wines. Serving local wines made from vinifera varieties is possible in some places in the US but not all, and in either case, grape varieties with a North American ancestry can be argued to be more honestly local than vinifera.

At some levels, that conceptual framework reaches into the social sphere as well, and some advocates of the artisanal hybrid wine scene are conscious of making wine in, and bringing wine to, communities that—whether for reasons of geography, race, identity, or financial status—have been excluded or marginalized in the traditional wine space.

In July, Brooklyn was home to a tasting billed as “ABV: Anything but Vinifera,” with hybrid varieties highlighted alongside ciders, American sakes, and “mixed ferments,” wherein grapes and other fruit come together in a single beverage. Noteworthy was the large number of people of color, both among the attendees and behind the tables, pouring their wines.

“We are diversifying the amount of land and the amount of people we can touch,” announced organizer Jahdé Marley at the opening of the event, “because we are no longer confined to regions that are able to grow vinifera in a hands-off, organic way. We are now bringing so many other people into this community because we are being as local as possible. We are touching the people who are literally in our backyards while thinking in terms of global impact.”

Marley was perhaps speaking about the natural-wine community more than about the world of wine as a whole, but the premise holds true. The natural-wine community is a passionate one and is creating an alternate path of connoisseurship whose impact is already being felt. At the core of the hybrid story, however, is a dialectic waiting to resolve. The artisanal, largely North American scene is asking wine drinkers to broaden their perception of wine in terms of quality, texture, and flavor profile, whereas other parts of the industry, particularly in Europe, are on a quest to meet the need for more organic, sustainable viticulture while changing the consumer’s experience as little as possible. It’s conceivable that both could succeed but fail to find common ground.

Characteristics deemed undesirable in a hybrid wine—in any wine, really—are not inherently so. Research has shown that consumers who taste hybrid varieties early on in their wine-drinking experience do not necessarily “grow out of them,” even as their tastes may mature or become more sophisticated in other ways. Japan is an interesting example, where knowledgeable consumers of course don’t expect such “hybrid characteristics” from their imported Burgundies but also don’t necessarily find them unacceptable in a domestic Delaware or Muscat Bailey A.

Likely, then, as more wine drinkers encounter quality hybrid-grape wines early in their drinking experience, is a new wing on the palace of wine, wherein some aspects of hybrid flavor profiles become more accepted—and perhaps even preferred—by a subset of wine drinkers but not necessarily at the cost of traditional examples.

At the same time, some so-called hybrid characteristics fade from existence as growers and winemakers work with the grapes and learn to handle them, in both vineyard and winery. For each young variety, there are certain to be traits we now ascribe to the grape itself as inherent that will evolve or even disappear and turn out in the end to have been attributable to winemaking or wine growing.

A grape variety with less than 100 years of existence is still in its early days in these regards. “Wine growing is not a short-term endeavor,” Ethan Joseph says.

“Vermont has come a long way since we started in the late ’90s—less than 25 years ago. That’s literally nothing compared to other wine regions of the world and how much history they’ve had, how much time to evaluate not just the variety but the variety on different sites, different soils, vinified different ways. As someone who’s been doing this for 16 years already, I think I will be lucky if, at the end of my career, I feel like I really have an understanding of these varieties and how best to vinify them. But that’s not to say we’re not going to be making great wine and learning a ton along the way.” 

The post Hybrid vines: In from the cold appeared first on World Of Fine Wine.

Nicolas Belfrage MW extolls the virtues of Ciliegiolo and admires the skill of those who work with the still-underused Italian red grape variety.

First published in issue 25 of the print edition of The World of Fine Wine in 2009, we are publishing this piece for the first time on worldoffinewine.com as part of our tribute to the hugely respected wine writer Nicolas Belfrage MW, who died last month. 

I am not quite sure how I talked myself into writing this article. From one point of view, the Ciliegiolo grape is just one of hundreds of obscure Italian varieties—a representative, among many, of Italy’s strength-in-depth in that “biodiversity” department that makes the study of Italian wines so fascinating. Or seen from another perspective, one of the many local varieties that, until quite recently, were in danger of becoming extinct.

The use of Ciliegiolo (pronounced chee-lye-JO-lo) as a blender is fairly widespread in its central Italian stamping ground, usually in an also-ran if not anonymous role, under the auspices of a bunch of DOCs whose disciplinari (production regulations) authorize it without usually mentioning it; but it is rarely, if increasingly, deployed as a single varietal. Certainly until 2004 it would not have been considered a suitable candidate for the journalistic spotlight. But then, something happened.

Cherry-picking Ciliegiolo

Before we get to that, perhaps it is better to get a few details out of the way—things that need to be mentioned in any grape-variety profile but that might be considered somewhat tedious were the reader’s attention not now so keenly focused on the promised exciting denouement.

Ciliegia (chee-LYE-ja) in Italian means cherry, and there seems to be a consensus that the grape is named for its physical resemblance to cherries, in terms of both color and shape. It tends to form large, quite compact hunches, the berries, too, being large (for wine grapes), with few pips.

Being juicy and fleshy, it is often used in a Tuscan dessert called schiacciata (skya-CHA-ta) all’uva, a kind of grape-focaccia tart much favored at vintage time. It is also a precocious ripener (7–10 days earlier than Sangiovese), having lowish acidity and tannin levels, and so has been employed for the production of novello wines.

Until quite recently it was used mostly as a blender, adding easy fruit and softening the aggression of Sangiovese’s tannins and acids. As such it features in a supporting role in the central Italian zones of Liguria, Fazio, and Marche, as well as Umbria and, of course, Tuscany.

One grower in the Tuscan province of Grosseto, in the southern Maremma, where it is mostly found today, reckons that much of what was called Morellino di Scansano in the 1970s and ’80s was in fact Ciliegiolo (because the nurseries, for reasons mysterious, when asked for Sangiovese sent Ciliegiolo instead, which may be why Morellino got the reputation of being easy to drink).

Nowadays, when Ciliegiolo is giving way to Sangiovese in Morellino (which is a synonym of Sangiovese) di Scansano, the wine of that name is becoming more acidic, more tannic, generally more serious. But this is not to say that Ciliegiolo, used varietally, is not capable of making serious wine. As we shall see.

Ciliegiolo: At home in galestro and clay

Ciliegiolo likes warm, dry sites, which explains its predilection for coastal areas, especially hilly ones with soil of low fertility: A mix of galestro and clay is ideal. It can be quite productive so needs a firm hand in the pruning—winter and summer—though that hand needs to be connected to a brain that understands that Ciliegiolo is relatively unproductive in the basal nodes so wants a bit of space.

Being precocious and fairly thin-skinned, it is vulnerable to vintage-time rains, but it withstands drought well and is quite resistant to oidium and that scourge of Italian vineyards today, esca.

Among the synonyms of Ciliegiolo are Ciliegino and Ciliegiolo di Spagna, and until 2004 tbe consensus among ampelographers was that the grape had probably been brought to Italy around 1870 from Spain—more precisely, from Santiago de Compostela by returning pilgrims.

That theory was weakened somewhat by the failure of anyone to find a variety of similar characteristics back in Spain; nor was it helped by the fact that an important researcher of 16th-century Florence, Soderini, had made mention of a Ciregiuolo Dolce, describing it as “a grape variety of long bunches, having a sweet and odoriferous taste and thriving in hot climates and lands.”

Child father of the man

What happened in 2004 was an international symposium devoted to Sangiovese organized by the Regione Toscana in Florence, at which a team of researchers from the Agrarian Institute at San Michele all’Adige, headed by José Vouillamoz, revealed that Sangiovese, which has certainly existed in Tuscany far longer than 140 years, was the offspring of Ciliegiolo and a Campanian variety called Calabrese Montenuovo.

Great excitement was generated by this announcement, made on the basis of exhaustive DNA examinations and guaranteed by the researchers as genuine to a very high degree of probability. The interest, of course, centered on Sangiovese, which is infinitely more important in the ampelographical annals of Italy than Ciliegiolo. Nonetheless, some attention was now focused on Ciliegiolo, amid scratchings of many learned heads as to how they could previously have got its origins so wrong.

I mentioned earlier that Ciliegiolo has until quite recently been used primarily as a blending grape—one whose function was, as one Chianti Classico grower put it, to ingentelire, or “civilize,” the aggressively structured Sangiovese.

In his property, he said, Ciliegiolo had always in past times been included in the uvaggio di vigneto for Chianti at around 3 percent of the total, and even in more recently planted vineyards it had been included at around the same proportion, albeit not dotted here and there but planted as a parcel.

Ciliegiolo in purezza

The use of Ciliegiolo as a 100 percent varietal, or at least as the lead variety in a blend, may not be traditional, but in this age when producers are casting around for something to differentiate their wine from everybody else’s, it has begun to catch on.

One of the first of the 100 percenters was Poggio Ciliegio, a Maremma Rosso IGT from Rascioni e Ceeconello at Orbetello. Jacopo Banti of Campiglia Marittima, near Suvereto in northern Maremma, takes advantage of the DOC Val di Cornia’s provision for varietal Ciliegiolo with a pair called Ceragiolo and Trafui.

They comment: “We believe in Ciliegiolo in purezza; through the years it has confirmed its ability to express intense color and concentration together with elegance—that is, a great ‘varietal’ personality.”

Poggio Argentiera, one of the leading quality producers of the Maremma, uses Ciliegiolo both in a blend and varietally, believing, with the right selection and treatment, it is possible to make a wine of elegance and refinement capable of aging ten years or more. Fe Tre Stelle of San Gimignano makes a varietal Rosso Toscano IGT of considerable concentration called, appropriately, Ciliegiolo.

And II Duchesco of Alberese in Maremma produces no fewer than four varietal Ciliegiolos, including a rosato called Alcione, a light red Buchero, a full dry red that macerates for two and a half weeks and gets 12 months barrique aging called Tarconte, and a passito wine made from grapes strung up to dry for at least two months and fermented in small barrels, being bottled in the March following the vintage.

The Ciliegiolo producers I know best are Sassotondo of Sorano in the Maremma Grossetano, which makes a basic Ciliegiolo under its house name and another more complex and elegant, oak-aged version called San Lorenzo, from the vineyard of that name outside the extremely picturesque town of Pitigliano in the hinterlands of the Grossetano.

I will admit to a certain prejudice, since I deal on a commercial basis with Carla Benini and Edoardo Ventimiglia, the couple from Rome who upped sticks in the 1990s and threw their all into producing fine wine in the Maremma.

That confession notwithstanding, I consider the unoaked wine to be one of the best-value reds in Italy, while the San Lorenzo is undoubtedly a wine of great distinction capable of considerable aging; I first had an inkling of this fact some years ago, when their wine stood out in a tasting of all the big names of the Tuscan coast (including Sassicaia, Ornellaia, you name it...).

I began this article by saying that I didn’t know why I was writing it, but just thinking of the quality of some of the producers and wines I have mentioned, I realize its purpose is to stand as a tribute to that amazing biodiversity that Ciliegiolo represents, and to those adventurous people who have had the vision to try something different and the courage to stick with it when times got hard.

References

ARSIA/Regione Toscana: press releases November 18 & 19, 2004.

N Belfrage, Brunello to Zibibbo (Faber & Faber, London; 2001).

N Belfrage, The Finest Wines of Tuscany and Central Italy (Aurum Press, London / University of California Press, San Francisco and Los Angeles; 2009).

N Breviglieri and E Casini, Principali Vitigni da Vino Coltivati in Italia (Ministero dell’Agricoltura e delle Foreste, Treviso; 1964).

G Brozzoni and D Thomases, I Vini di Veronelli2009 (Veronelli Editore, Bergamo; 2009).

A Calo, A Scienza, and A Costacurta, Vitigni d’ltalia (Calderini Edagricole, Bologna; 2001).

Matura Marketing srl, www.matura.net

Nick Belfrage MW

The World of Fine Wine was saddened by the passing of Nicolas Belfrage MW in September. Easily the most significant anglophone writer on Italian wine of his generation, Belfrage was one of WFW’s longest serving and most respected contributors.

Over the next few days, as a tribute to his immense contribution to wine-writing and Italian wine, we are posting some of the best of Belfrage’s pieces from the print issue of WFW on worldoffinewine.com for the first time.

The post Ciliegiolo: Going solo appeared first on World Of Fine Wine.

A grape variety dating back more than 2,000 years, and capable of producing wines of awesome power, Sagrantino was on the verge of extinction 30 years ago. Nicolas Belfrage MW explores the mysterious origin of the grape behind Sagrantino Montefalco DOCG, and explains why he welcomes its revival.

First published in issue 16 of the print edition of The World of Fine Wine in 2007, we are publishing this piece for the first time on worldoffinewine.com as part of our tribute to the hugely respected wine writer Nicolas Belfrage MW, who died last month. 

The story of Italian viniculture in the 21st century (though il may be thought a bit early to be making such predictions) may well prove to be that of the return of the indigenous local grape variety, in some cases from the jaws of extinction. Gone—or if not gone, going—are the days when growers felt it absolutely necessary to “improve” their local varietals with a dollop of Cabernet, or Merlot, or Syrah.

Today the watchword among foresightful Italians is “autochthonous.” Italians are coming to understand that the only, or at least principal feature that distinguishes their wines from those of the rest of the world is the exclusivity of their raw material. While the classic French varieties have been successfully reproduced in various parts of the world, no one outside the relevant Italian growing zones has yet managed convincing versions of Nebbiolo, Sangiovese, or Aglianico, to name but three.

No variety better epitomizes this rise from the dead than Sagrantino, the grape of the small central Umbrian growing zone that goes by the name of its central commune, Romancing the grape. Nor is it in the least presumptuous to link it with the illustrious threesome named above.

Montefalco Sagrantino DOCG may lag far behind them and others in terms of volume of wine produced, of research papers devoted to it, of time passed since it first appeared on the radar of quality-wine watchers of the world. But it is capable, albeit so far in rare cases, of wines of awesome—for once the word is used advisedly—quality.

Sacred Sagrantino?

The name Sagrantino does not go that far back in Italian wine history. The research team at Arnaldo Caprai (see below) claim that “as far as we were able to discover, the term Sagrantino is mentioned for the first time in a handwritten document dated 1598 and kept at the Archive of Assisi,” but details of the document are not given, and there is no record of any further mention for several hundred years.

Other researchers seem to think the name (whose significance is the subject of guesswork: something to do with “sacred"? Altar wine? But it is too rich and tannic) is not much more than 100 years old, though they suggest that the grape, under the name Itriola, goes back perhaps at least 2,000 years, being mentioned by, among others, 1st-century Pliny the Elder in his Historia Naturalis.

If this is the case, then the alternative contention—that the grape was brought (from the Middle East, or perhaps from Spain) by some itinerant Franciscan on a pilgrimage to his order’s holiest site is incorrect. Andrea Bacci, in his De Naturali Vinarum Historia, refers to Itriola in the post-Franciscan 16th century. It seems unlikely that the same name would have been used, even 1,500 years apart, for two completely different high- quality grapes from the same place.

DNA tests have suggested that the Sagrantino of today bears no relation to any other grape of central Italy, or indeed of anywhere else, so if Pliny’s Itriola was not Sagrantino, it has vanished from the face of the earth. Therefore, it probably was—despite the contention of Dr Fronzi in 1915 to the effect that “nothing is known of the origin of Sagrantino, most growers [tending] to think [that] it is not a local variety but imported, perhaps by a follower of St Francis.”

Close to extinction

However that may he, by the latter half of the 20th century, Sagrantino had come perilously close to extinction. Sabina Addamiano of the University of Perugia writes that “at the beginning of the 1970s [there remained of it] less than 10 hectares (25 acres).”

This was toward the end of a prolonged period in Italy, following the triple disasters of oidium, peronospora, and phylloxera, when the commerce of wine was based on principles of high volume low cost, in which context the low-yielding, highly temperamental Sagrantino was out of place. It was in 1977 that Sagrantino Passito (the traditional wine) was elevated to DOC status, followed by the newly invented Secco version in 1979 (both moving up to DOCG in 1992).

During the 1980s, at a time when Italian wine was rediscovering the concept of quality, there occurred a slow awakening, on the part of producers such as Caprai, Fratelli Adanti, and Fongoli, to the treasure that Montefalcans possessed in their vineyards (indeed on their very doorsteps, the vine tending traditionally to be planted in small plots such as front gardens and vinified for personal consumption). Plantings were increased, with monovarietal vineyards taking off for the first time.

Arnaldo Caprai: Researching Sagrantino

Today, the pre-eminent producer of Sagrantino di Montefalco is the house of Arnaldo Caprai, a textile manufacturer who first bought 3ha (7.5 acres) of vineyard in 1971; today they have more than 150ha (370 acres) of vineyard, including 30ha (75 acres) devoted to experimentation.

In 1987, the management of the estate passed to Arnaldo’s son Marco, and this heralded the extraordinary work that has gone into researching the grapes, the wines, and the territory of Montefalco. In 1989 Marco recruited University of Milan academic Professor Leonardo Valenti—a partnership that has brought great benefit over the past 18 years, not only to Caprai but to Montefalco generally.

To delve in detail into Caprai’s research on the mysteries of Sagrantino would take us far beyond the parameters of this article. Suffice it to say that enormous work has been done, and continues to be done, on clonal selection, planting densities, training and pruning methods, vineyard techniques, production limitations, and zoning all backed by microvinification.

The crowning moment came in 2003, when three of the clones developed by Caprai were approved and inscribed in the National Register of Varieties. One has to see this in the context of a vine that had never undergone any disciplined selection previously and was therefore in a completely anarchic state, with hundreds of biotypical variations on the major theme, despite the paucity of material.

Work continues—not only on the part of Caprai, but also of other major players, such as Saiagricola’s Colpetrone (140+ ha [350 acres]), led by winemaker Lorenzo Landi—on other secrets of Sagrantino, in particular relating to its phenomenal structure.

The grape boasts (if that is the word) the highest level of poly phenols of any quality grape in the world—well ahead of Aglianico in second place, and a long way ahead of Cabernet Sauvignon in 20th position.

The positive side of this is that Sagrantino, being super-rich in antioxidants, is one of the most health-giving grapes in existence. The negative side is the massive astringency that can leave the mouth dry and puckered.

The goal, of course, is to emphasize the fruit and round out the tannins, using methods both in vineyard and winery vinification and maturation. Colpetrone and Caprai, among others, are doing a fine job in this respect.

A boom phase

Today Sagrantino di Montefalco is in a boom phase, production rising dramatically year by year, admittedly from a low base, as is the number of producers, an increasing band of whom are buying in from outside (for example, Antinori, Ferrari, and Livon, as well as Saiagricola).

Production of the two 100 percent Sagrantino wines mentioned above, plus their sidekick Montefalco Rosso, which blends a small amount of Sagrantino with a minimum 6o percent Sangiovese plus “other grapes” (meaning alas!—Merlot and Cabernet), is policed by the Consorzio Tutela Vini Montefalco.

It includes more than 70 percent of producers, and has brought off some important coups, such as the hiring of Professor Rocco di Stefano of the Institute for Enology in Asti to oversee its research program.

It is also particularly proud to have forbidden the use of the name Sagrantino in the title of any other Italian wine, so this intriguing and potentially thrilling variety will remain virtually synonymous with Montefalco.

SAGRANTINO CHARACTERISTICS

Bunch: medium to small size
Berry: medium-small, blue-black
Budding time: medium
Flowering: early (June 1-10)
Color turn: medium
Maturation: late (October 10-20)
Vigor: medium
Productivity: medium-low
Sugar level: high
Phenolic level: very high
Best recent years: 1985, 1990,1998, 2001, 2005

PRODUCTION REGULATIONS (SAGRANTINO)

Yield: 8,000kg/ha
Yield wine from grapes: 65%
Alcohol: 13% dry, 14.5% passito

Aging: 30 months (12 in oak)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

N Belfrage, Brunello to Zibibbo (Mitchell Beazley, London; 2001).

A Calo, A Scienza, and A Costacurta, Viligni d ’ltalia (Calderini, Bologna; 2001).

Dottoressa Simona Maria Fongoli, Universita di Piacenza, paper for Consorzio Tutela Vini Montefalco (2001).

M Fregoni, Viticoltura di Qualita (Edizioni l’Informatore Agrario, Verona; 1998).

L Fronzi, Il Sagrantino di Montefalco (Perugia; 1915).

Nick Belfrage MW

The World of Fine Wine was saddened by the passing of Nicolas Belfrage MW in September. Easily the most significant anglophone writer on Italian wine of his generation, Belfrage was one of WFW’s longest serving and most respected contributors.

Over the next few days, as a tribute to his immense contribution to wine-writing and Italian wine, we are posting some of the best of Belfrage’s pieces from the print issue of WFW on worldoffinewine.com for the first time.

The post The miracle of Montefalco: Sagrantino appeared first on World Of Fine Wine.

As the Sicilian wine authorities approve an official change in name for the island’s most widely planted white grape variety from Catarratto to Lucido, Jim Clarke looks back on the recent history of grape re-christening in Italy.

One doesn’t have to spend much time with Jancis Robinson & Co’s massive tome Wine Grapes to know that the grape varieties we know and love operate under more aliases than a Mission Impossible agent. Still, it’s the nature of modern branding to find a name and stick with it, so few grapes change their names once they’ve hit the big time. The exception may be Italy, where several mainstream or at least widely planted grapes have changed their IDs within recent memory.

Lucido: Short and alluring?

This came home to me when I heard about the latest example, which comes to us from Sicily. Catarratto has become the island’s most planted grape, occupying about 30,000ha (74,000 acres), and varietal bottlings have shot up dramatically in the past decade. But the Sicilia DOC has deemed the name not ready for prime time, and has pushed through an alternative, Lucido. The new moniker comes not from focus group testing but from one of the grape’s clones, albeit not the mostly widely planted. That honor goes to Catarratto Bianco Comune. The Consorzio’s press release describes the new name as “short” and “alluring” compared with the “contorted” sound of Catarratto. It’s likely that the new name will be mispronounced by many Americans—the “c” will be rendered as a soft “s” sound rather than the Italian “ci” of “ciao”—but that’s less important than making wine drinkers feel more comfortable asking for it.

Presumably a majority of Sicily’s producers must be onboard with the change. At the other end of the country there was great consternation among Friuli’s wine community 15 years ago when the EU demanded that they drop the “Tocai” from Tocai Friulano—a grape mostly known elsewhere, if it’s known at all, as Sauvignonasse. The instigation for this change was the demands of producers in Hungary’s Tokaj. Though at the time it would be hard to argue that the Italian dry whites might be confused with the Hungarian sweet wines that had reemerged on the world market after the end of the Cold War, the large number of excellent dry whites coming from Tokaj today show the decision, which also affected Tokay d’Alsace in France, was to some degree prescient.

And so we have Friulano the grape’s shortened name. Producers at the time argued that the change would hurt sales, but Friulano, senza “Tocai,” remains a large part of the region’s vinous identity. If anything has held it back it’s more likely to be the success of Pinot Grigio, grown across northeastern Italy, as well as Sauvignon Blanc and Prosecco.

Glera: Protecting Prosecco

The latter has had its own cause to protect its name, ever since Prosecco became the leading driver of Italian wine exports. The word “Prosecco” once designated both the sparkling wine and the primary grape used in producing it, but that changed when it was stripped from the latter in 2009. The grape was left with a much blander pseudonym, Glera, which is how it is officially known today. This move prevented winegrowers in other parts of the world from planting the Prosecco grape and then slapping the varietal name on their labels. Depending on your point of view the change protects either the Prosecco “brand” and the Italian producers making it, or consumers who might otherwise be deluded into buying a wine made from Prosecco grapes but which is not a Prosecco wine in terroir terms. A similar motivation seems to lie behind the Brunello di Montalcino 1992 decision to reframe their grape variety as “Sangiovese” rather than Brunello or even Sangiovese Grosso, though that also seems to have been born from a recognition that the Sangiovese clones of the Montalcino area were not as distinct from clones elsewhere as was once thought.

Italian diversity

In some ways this all underscores Italy’s diversity of labeling practices compared in particular to Spain and France. Some appellations such as Chianti Classico, are entirely devoid of grape names, and in other areas such as Alto-Adige and Friuli varietal indicators are the norm. Some split the difference—Barbera d’Asti, for example or, previously, Brunello di Montalcino. The latter retained the word “Brunello” as part of the DOCG name even though it technically no longer indicated the grape variety, which is probably for the best; in colloquial usage many wine drinkers never even get to the “di Montalcino” part. That’s in contrast to Dogliani, where the grape variety, Dolcetto, has been absorbed or excised from the DOCG’s name entirely.

Fans of Italian wine seem indifferent to many of these changes. In terms of consumer recognition, most of these changes seem to have satisfied to a marketing Hippocratic Oath rule to “first, do no harm.” Sicily’s adoption of the Lucido name, however, hopes to do one better and give Catarratto a facelift. Whether it will make the wine’s appeal more lucid to winedrinkers remains to be seen.

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From Tannat’s contested South American debut, back to its origins in southwest France, and forward to its latest outposts in New Zealand, Julia Harding MW charts the rise of this climate-sensitive and terroir-transparent grape variety, now producing a thrilling range of wines

Forget the tango and dulce de leche, the competitive debate now simmering concerns Tannat’s first home in South America. Those waving the Argentinian flag claim that the variety was brought to their country toward the end of the 19th century by the Basque farmer Juan Jáuregui (born in Irouleguy in 1812), who traveled from Bordeaux to Montevideo in 1835. He then moved north to Salto before crossing the River Uruguay and settling in Concordia in the province of Entre Ríos, in southern Argentina, immediately opposite the Uruguayan town of Salto.

According to Alberto Moroy, a specialist in Argentinian and Uruguayan history, writing in Uruguay’s national newspaper El Pais in March 2016, Jáuregui planted the first Tannat cuttings in Concepción in 1861, brought over from France by his nephew Pedro Jáuregui. They apparently came via his paternal grandfather from the estate of Louis XVI. (Moroy’s account is based on a book by Frenchman Alexis Pierre Louis Edouard Peiret, A Visit to the Colonies of the Argentine Republic, published in Buenos Aires in 1889.) Jáuregui was also the first to make wine in Concordia.

The story continues with another Basque, Don Pascual Harriague (1819–94), who emigrated from Lapurdi (Labourd) to Uruguay in 1838 and settled in Montevideo. In 1840 he moved north to Salto, which is where he became interested in farming and eventually in grape growing. He is said to have bought cuttings of Tannat from Juan Jáuregui and planted his first Tannat vineyard on the outskirts of Salto in 1871, producing his first commercial Tannat wine in 1875.

The Uruguayan banner, however, is being waved by GRIMVITIS, a multidisciplinary team created in 2000 with joint funding from INAVI (Instituto Nacional de Vitivinicultura) and the Universidad de la República to carry out research into Uruguayan viticulture. (See the GRIMVITIS website for more details.) Now part of the Centro de Estudios Interdisciplinarios Latinoamericanos de la Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación de la Universidad de la República, they are working on an eight-volume history of the vines and wines of Uruguay, including a new project looking into Harriague’s pioneering role in relation to Tannat.

According to Professor Alcides Beretta Curi, “It is not accurate to assert that Tannat was introduced by Basques in Argentina […]. Although the work is not done yet, our investigation reveals a greater complexity: I dare say that the vast majority of the varieties entered through the port of Montevideo, the main entrance of immigrants to the country, among others the Basques. Then they were spread through the country, a process that has been verified since the establishment of the Uruguayan State in 1830 (although vines were already cultivated during colonial times). The research we are doing is strongly oriented to this explanation; this hypothesis would reveal the presence of Tannat a few decades before Uruguay began the production of vines for industrial purposes, and before Harriague himself made contact with this variety, when he was not yet a winemaker. The contact of Jáuregui with Harriague should be placed in this context; and since this is not a well-known story, people have fueled a ‘mythology’ with weak evidence.”

While we cannot confidently confirm where the truth lies, we can be sure that wherever the cuttings landed and were first planted, their first home was southwest France.

Tannat in France

According to Rézeau (1997), Tannat, spelled Tanat, was first mentioned in 1783–84 in Madiran in the Hautes-Pyrénées in southwest France, where it is still the dominant variety, though it is also planted in Béarn, Irouleguy, Tursan, St-Mont, and Cahors. The first occurrence of today’s spelling dates to 1827. Lavignac (2001) indicates that the name Tannat derives from a word in the Béarn dialect meaning “tanned,” referring to its deep color, but it might also be to do with the variety’s high tannin content.

Lavignac suggests that Tannat could be the progeny of an undetermined variety from the Pyrenees and that it is also morphologically close to Baroque from the Landes and to Lauzet from the Béarn in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, “two varieties that belong, like Tannat, to the Courbu ampelographic group” (Robinson et al, 2012). This grouping is consistent with recent parentage analysis carried out by Dr José Vouillamoz based on 22 DNA markers suggesting a possible parent/offspring relationship between Tannat and Manseng Noir, subsequently confirmed by Lacombe et al (2013), who also posit a parent/ offspring relationship with a variety called Plant de Cauzette.

Lavignac also notes that it was little cultivated in southwest France until the beginning of the 19th century, when it became increasingly popular owing to its productivity and robustness. Because of its vigor, it tends to be pruned long. It is slightly prone to rot because, although the bunches are big, they are compact, with small to medium-sized berries. As I learned on my most recent visit to Uruguay in 2017, Juanicó’s agronomist Gustavo Blumetto recommends cutting off the tips and the wings of the large Tannat bunches in some instances to allow better ventilation and full ripening.

According to FranceAgriMer statistics, in 2016 there were a total of 2,974ha (7,350 acres), around half in the Gers, down from 4,192ha (10,359 acres) in 2006. The official catalog of varieties permitted in France lists 12 registered clones. Madiran wines have a reputation for their deep color and firm tannins, though in recent years some wines have been made in such a way as to make them accessible without long years in bottle.

Two of Tannat’s offspring are also in the French official catalog. Arinarnoa is a 1956 Tannat x Cabernet Sauvignon cross created at INRA Bordeaux by Marcel Durquéty. There were 179ha (442 acres) planted in France in 2016, mainly in Languedoc and Roussillon. There are also a few producers in South America—Giménez Méndez in Uruguay, Familia Zuccardi in Mendoza—and in 2007, there were 7ha (17 acres) in Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul.

The second is Ekigaïna, another Tannat x Cabernet Sauvignon cross obtained at INRA Bordeaux, probably also by Pierre Marcel Durquéty. There were just 2ha (5 acres) in France in 2011, and equally minuscule plantings in Argentina thanks to Zuccardi.

Tannat in Uruguay

While southwest France is Tannat’s original home, it has found a second one in South America, especially in Atlantic-cooled Uruguay. Carrau et al (2011) continue the story of Pasucal Harriague’s vineyard on the outskirts of Salto: “Later in the 1880s, this vineyard together with a small winery were bought by the British brothers G and C Dickinson & Co, who transformed the winery into one of the best of that time, including a laboratory for microbiology […]. Although the technology improved between 1930 and 1970, the wine producers thought in terms of increasing quantity rather than increasing quality.”

This focus on quantity was encouraged by “a closed market for imported wines, very little demand for quality by the consumer, and an increase in the local consumption of wine from about 15 to 28 liters [4 to 7.5 US gallons] per capita.” A further consequence of this, after hybrids were introduced in the 1950s, was the common blending of Tannat with Muscat varieties or with these red hybrids. As a result, Tannat “did not have very good reputation.”

A drive for quality began in the 1970s, with greater focus on the best sites for viticulture. This was essential if producers were going to be able to export their wines. At the same time, the first virus-free clones of Tannat were imported from France and California, and these have largely replaced the old vines that were derived from the original plant material brought to Uruguay in the 19th century. While some old vineyards remain, in theory any new plantings must be of the virus-free clones.

Writing in 1997, Professor Francisco Carrau of the Uruguayan National University anticipated a promising future for his country’s wine industry. “With the program of training for winemakers and the recently started R&D projects in the University of the Republic, it is hoped that the Uruguayan wine industry, based on quality wines at a good price, will continue opening markets and reach its target of 300,000 cases by the year 2000.” Martín López of INAVI confirmed that they exceeded that target, exporting just over 350,000 cases of bottled wine by that date, and reaching roughly 464,000 cases by 2017. Yet even now, exports are generally less than 5 percent of total production.

These numbers are not differentiated by variety, so it is impossible to know what proportion of exports is represented by Tannat wines. It is, however, known that in 2017 there were 1,708ha (4,220 acres) of Tannat planted, representing 26 percent of the total vineyards in the country and nearly 34 percent of dark-skinned grapes—very similar to the 1,731 ha in 2016 (INAVI). This area produces a little bit more than 25 million kg, just over 26 percent of the total crush.

The Uruguayan wine industry is dominated by small to medium-sized family businesses, often passed down through several generations, with many more smallholder growers than wineries. Even if the damp climate makes it difficult to farm organically, Uruguayans are proud to cite the Environmental Sustainability Index, which placed Uruguay third after Finland and Norway (Esty et al, 2005). Now some 90 percent of the country’s energy is from renewable sources, primarily wind turbines.

While the climate may not be conducive to organic farming—both rainfall and average annual temperatures are higher than in Bordeaux—it does suit Tannat. Santiago Deicas of Juanicó emphasizes that this variety needs humidity during the ripening season. “If Tannat vines feel severe water stress, they block the nutrient interchange with the berries, and it is irreversible, whereas other varieties can go back to normal interchange once the stress is diminished. This fact is extremely important to understand why Tannat only develops its full potential in a few terroirs.”

While there are many different styles of Tannat in Uruguay—from light, fragrant, and unoaked, to rich, tannic, and oaky—they are almost always marked by their deep color, freshness, and tannic structure, though some wines are made in such a way as to be accessible without long bottle aging. Even when the tannins are firm or powerful, they are rarely astringent. Tannat has one further advantage: its reported health benefits, thanks to the very high level of polyphenols— see, for example, Corder et al (2006).

Viticulture and clones

While the vineyard “reconversion process” led to “a progressive loss of old plants,” the aim of the research conducted by González Techera et al (2004) was “to determine whether several old Uruguayan Tannat clones were genetically different from the French commercial Tannat clones recently introduced.”

Their research found that there was very little clonal variation and a high level of homozygosity, suggesting that the parents of Tannat are genetically closely related. Only one microsatellite could clearly distinguish the two groups and both “old Uruguayan clones and French commercial clones were found in each group, suggesting that the original sources were probably the same.” Measuring the concentrations of aroma compounds in their microvinifications resulted in the same two groups.

Eduardo Boido, winemaker at Bodegas Bouza, explains the source of the virus-free clonal material: “Nowadays, 12 clones are selected and registered in France through its registered trademark ENTAV-INRA: 398, 399, 472, 473, 474, 475, 717, 794, 944, 1048, 1154, and 1175 (Établissement National Technique pour l’Amélioration de la Viticulture, 2017). There is also a registry and preservation of clones carried out by Foundation Plant Service (California), with the collaboration of the University of California, where the updated version has clones 03, 01.1, 04, 04.1 (FPS UC Davis, 2017).”

French clone 398 is the most widely planted in Uruguay. According to studies in France and in Uruguay, clones 717 and 474 give wines with more color and total polyphenols. Clone 398, however, gives wines with less alcohol. Sensory panels also preferred the wines from these three clones.

At Bouza they have 11.5ha (28.5 acres) of Tannat, including 0.5ha (1.2 acres) that is 45 years old and was planted using mass selection. All their new plantings are nursery clones from Uruguay or France. Boido’s preferred clones are 398 and 717, though 474 was chosen for their most recently established vineyards in Pan de Azúcar and Las Espinas.

Pisano Family Wines in Progreso (Canelones) have 15 ha (37 acres) of Tannat of different ages ranging from 10 to 35 years old with a very small plot of “ageless” Tannat (70-plus years old) where they maintain non-virus-free old strains descended from the original vineyards. Any new plants needed to renovate existing blocks are bought French clones that are now widely available, with a range of rootstocks purchased from nurseries in Uruguay, “but we would reproduce and plant old genetic material if it was allowed […], obviously not in big amounts but to get more nuances.” Pisano also believes that small plantings from the old-vine material should be used to study the potential differences and to maintain the diversity that could be very important if certain clones start to show pesticide resistance.

This preference is informed by their experience with Syrah: “In the past, when regulations were not so stiff, we managed to get a séléction massale of Syrah from Château de Beaucastel, and I am convinced that our Syrah is what it is because of that genetic material. Leaves turn reddish much before the virus-free clones, and the berries are not so sturdy, but I love the taste and diversity of the grapes.”

Pisano agrees with Boido that “for high-quality wines under the conditions of Uruguayan terroir, clones 474 and 717 have the best grape and wine quality […]. The wines of these clones, together with 398, have a great structure, combined with the best and most typical fruit flavors and aromas, and less harsh tannins.” He adds that 474 gives lower yields than 398, 399, or 475. He also finds differences in the wines from these clones, though he believes the differences would be greater and the wines more nuanced if they could use mass selection.

Juanicó (Familia Deicas) is one of the largest producers in Uruguay. It owns 73ha (180 acres) of Tannat, in eight different regions of Uruguay and buys fruit from growers whose vineyards it manages in four further regions. Its most recent plantings were four years ago. As well as buying off-the-peg clones, it takes cuttings from its best vines and sends them to a nursery, which ensures they are virus-free and propagates them. “Clonal selection is important so that every plant ripens at the same time.”

It has seven different clones but prefers 717 and 398 for their high quality and because they enable its vineyard workers to cut the wings and tips off bunches to get full and even ripeness. Santiago Deicas confirms what research has shown—that unlike varieties such as Sauvignon Blanc, clonal variation is minor and the biggest difference is terroir. Juanicó’s single-vineyard Tannats are proof of this, as are the wines being made in the most recently developed, granite-dominated region of Garzón, which tend to be lighter and fresher than those from longer-established regions such as Colonia, Progreso, and Carmelo. (The majority of Uruguayan vineyards are on the more common calcareous clay soils.)

Bracco Bosca in Atlantida (Canelones) has around 4ha (10 acres) of Tannat, with an average age of 25 years. Fabiana Bracco explains that they are hoping to plant more Tannat because they are very happy with the results of their unoaked version. (Bouza and Garzón also do very good unoaked Tannats.) They generally buy clones for new plantings and prefer 717, since they find it gives the best expression of fruit, but they do find different clones are better suited to specific parcels.

Wherever it is grown, Tannat has many points in its favor in terms of its appeal to consumers: deep color (arguably less important than in the past); a high level of antioxidants, said to confer cardiovascular health benefits; and the ability to age well in bottle, even if current winemaking is also able to produce wines that are more fruity and accessible in youth. A “manifesto” that a group of producers in Canelones and San José presented to me spoke proudly of following the traditions of their Basque and Italian ancestors in focusing on Tannat, making wine in what they called a non-international style, and it is this distinctly Uruguayan flavor profile and structure that gives the producers in this small green country the edge.

Recommended producers and wines include Narbona, Campotinto, Irurtia, and Buena Visto from Carmelo (Colonia); Juanicó’s single-vineyard wines from various different regions; Bracco Bosca and Viñedos de los Vientos from Atlantida (Canelones); Bouza’s wines from Maldonado and Canelones; Pisano, Viña Progreso, Marichal, Pizzorno, Carrau, De Lucca, Antigua Bodega Stagnari, and Artesana from Canelones; Alto de la Ballena and Garzón from Maldonado; El Capricho from Durazno; Cerro Chapeu from Ravera.

Gaining ground: Argentina

While Tannat is the dominant red variety in Uruguay, this is definitely not the case in Argentina, where Malbec takes that crown. Total plantings in Argentina (INV, 2017) are 835ha (2,060 acres), which is just 0.74 percent of the total vineyard area, and 1 percent of the vineyard area planted with red grapes (cf Malbec, with 36 percent). Although Salta in the north of the country has just 130ha (320 acres, 5.57 percent of the region’s vineyards)—less than San Juan (330ha [815 acres]) and Mendoza (317ha [783 acres])—it represents a higher proportion of the overall vineyard area in Salta and has earned a reputation in the Calchaquí Valleys for quality wines and a distinctive style. The variety’s potentially astringent tannins are still powerful here but smoother, thanks to full ripening, making the wines more accessible in youth. They also tend to be deeply colored and more aromatic than in Madiran, with flavors of dark ripe fruits, sometimes carrying notes of menthol or pencils.

In 1928, Miguel Hurtado, the first winemaker from Salta in charge of the experimental viticultural station in Cafayate, described Tannat in this way: “Recommended for body and blends. Making Lorda (Tannat) using more than 50 percent with any other variety (Cabernet or Malbec), produces table wines that can stand comparison with the best of the country in its class.”

When trained on overhead parral trellises, as the old vines in Salta tend to be, great care is needed, especially in the run-up to the harvest, to ventilate the canopy to avoid botrytis bunch rot. Wines of Argentina describes it as “a wild and rebellious variety,” productive and vigorous, with a long growing and ripening cycle.

It is well suited to barrel aging, though it can pick up too much oak flavor if there is too much new oak, and I prefer wines matured in older wood. As in Madiran and Uruguay, it is renowned for its high levels of the antioxidant resveratrol.

Victor Barroso, CEO of Vivero San Nicolás vine nursery, which produces about 4 million plants per year, reports that Tannat ranks sixth in their production at around 100,000 plants per year and is propagated mostly from mass selection. He attributes growing demand to “the high-quality Tannat (mainly color and structure) obtained in warm Argentine areas such as northern Mendoza, San Juan, La Rioja, Salta […]. Wineries can obtain better qualities in mid-priced wines.”

At Colomé/Amalaya, French winemaker Thibault Delamotte suggests it brings red fruit and freshness, as well as contributing to the tannin structure of blends with Malbec and Petit Verdot or Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon. Good producers of varietal Tannat or Tannat-dominant blends include Seclantas Adentro in Molinos and, in Calchaquí Valleys around Cafayete, Vallista, El Porvenir, Domingo Molina, Yocochuya, and El Esteco. At Piatelli, Alejandro Nesman says he would love to make a varietal Tannat, but it is hard to buy enough fruit; and anyway, the company’s American owner told him that such a wine would be a hard sell.

Alejandro Pepa of Bodega El Esteco in Salta notes that most of the 138ha (341 acres) of Tannat in the Calchaquí Valleys— about 3.5 percent of the valleys’ total vineyards—were planted many years ago, and some are now more than 80 years old. The oldest vineyards are pergola-trained, while the new ones are typically VSP-trained.

Even the older vines yield well, says Pepa, and though the bunches are slightly compact, the vines are very healthy. They ripen slowly and reach maturity from mid-March and as late as mid-April. “A positive aspect is that this level of ripeness goes hand in hand with very good acidity and naturally low pH levels (3.45–3.55 at the time of harvesting).”

Grape skins offer great concentration of both tannins and color, partly because the berries often contain four seeds rather than the more regular two. As a result, during winemaking “great attention must be given to the style of maceration.” Marco Etchart of Yocochuya agrees, noting that extraction must be very gentle.

I agree with Pepa that the Calchaquí Valleys “offer excellent Tannats: deeply intense and concentrated purplish black wines that are powerful on the nose, inky, with notes of dark fruit and a great palate with white chocolate and mineral touches.” Pepa believes that “this is definitely one of the best locations in Argentina and Latin America where this exquisite varietal is grown, which also happens to be one of my favorite wines.”

Sebastian Zuccardi, based in Mendoza, suggests that the greater recognition for Tannat in Salta than elsewhere in Argentina is because “the wines produced with Tannat have more character there.” Although Mendoza has more hectares planted to Tannat, the proportion of vineyard area planted to it is higher in Salta, and it is difficult to find 100 percent Tannat from Mendoza. Zuccardi has 6.5ha (16 acres) of Tannat in its Santa Rosa vineyards and uses it in Santa Julia blends such as Magna. “It is a grape that has a very good tannin structure and is not as ‘hard’ as it can be in wetter climates. It ripens very well, but in wet years it can have rot problems, because of the compaction of the bunches.”

Susana Balbo Wines in Mendoza buys Tannat grapes from the Uco Valley, and its CEO Edgardo Pópolo believes that although the variety tends to be used in blends, it performs better in Argentina than in Uruguay thanks to the high elevation, sun, temperature, and high UV, which change the variety’s “tannin expression.” Harvested early, “it is never rustic or green in Mendoza; when harvested late, tannins are bold, soft, and rounded.”

And so the rivalry between the two countries continues.

Elsewhere in South America

Statistics from Brazil’s Cadastro Vitícola (2015) recorded 323ha (800 acres) in Rio Grande do Sul, the country’s most important state for wine production, compared with 136ha (336 acres) in 1995, with a peak of 421ha (1,040 acres) in 2007. The area is pretty much evenly divided between Serra Gaúcha and Campanha Gaúcha.

Tannat was brought from Argentina to Serra Gaúcha by the Experimental Station of Caxias do Sul in 1947. Since then, new plant material has been imported from California (1971) and France (1977). Tannat stood out in experiments and in trials carried out by producers in the early 1980s, and commercial distribution began in the Serra Gaúcha in 1987. Over the past 30 years, according to Wines of Brazil’s Rodolfo Lucchese, Tannat has demonstrated tremendous potential in the country, mainly in the Serra Gaúcha and Campanha Gaúcha regions.

Rizzon and Miele’s research into Tannat (2004) concluded that “the must has high titratable acidity, and when the climatic conditions are favorable, it reaches a high sugar content […]. Sensorially, it is characterized by intense red-violet color, reduced aroma, and notes of ripe red fruit. In the mouth, it presents good structure due to the phenolic compounds, but with little fineness, softness, and balance. It is a wine recommended for blending with other fine red wines, to improve color and body, but can also be marketed as varietal.”

From the Brazilian varietal Tannats I have tasted, the fruit quality is exceptional, with both red- and black-fruit flavors and great balance between fruit intensity and structure, the tannins broad-shouldered but smooth. In some instances, I think it could be picked a little earlier for greater freshness and slightly lower alcohol, and a more restrained use of oak would allow the fruit to shine. The best examples come from Pizzato and Miolo. I liked Lidio Carraro’s bold non-use of oak but felt the fruit was a little too ripe.

Flavio Pizzato says he has had very good results with Tannat over the past ten years, and surprisingly, it is his biggest single-variety export, selling as well as his Cabernet Sauvignon— though not quite up with Merlot—on the domestic market.

Lucchese concludes that the tannins of varietal Tannat “generally demand aging in the bottle” but that once its tannins “have been tamed […], the wine presents a complex, compelling scent.” He also points to a more recent attempt by producers who have come to understand the grape to make “friendlier labels for younger people to consume.”

Moving southwest to Chile, there are just 7ha (17 acres) of Tannat, with about half of that in Colchagua (Marchigu¨e, Peralillo, San Fernando, and Santa Cruz) and small areas in Maule, Curicó, and Cachapoal.

Eugenio Lira, president of the Chilean national enologists’ association, explains that most of the Tannat planted in Chile is used in blends, and only Odjfell is making a varietal wine in Cauquenes. In 2015, however, Montes planted 5ha (12 acres) of an ENTAV clone on steep slopes (to reduce vigor) in the Apalta Valley, where “the temperatures match perfectly well with the variety,” according to Aurelio Montes. The company expects to produce its first Tannat in 2019. Lira surmises that the variety was brought to Chile with other French varieties at the end of the 19th century but that some of the plant material would have been brought in more recently, from Uruguay or Argentina or from plant nurseries in France. Lira concluded that the area planted to Tannat is not growing, and he does not see it as a new trend in Chile.

According to Cees van Casteren MW, Tannat is extremely well suited to Bolivia; it works well in a relatively short window and deals very well with the ultra-high UV in Bolivia. Grapes tend to have thicker skins in such conditions as a form of self-protection, and presumably Tannat has a head-start with its high tannin content. Van Casteren describes Bolivian Tannats as having “silky and sweet” tannins, deep color and fruit, and good balance of fruit, acidity, and alcohol. He singles out Campos de Solana and Aranjuez as top producers and goes as far as to say he thinks Bolivian Tannat is even better than Uruguayan.

Van Casteren estimates that in Peru there are around 50ha (125 acres) of Tannat. Tacama is the main producer but he suggests that “in quality it will not get close to Campos or Aranjuez.”

Beyond France and South America

New Zealand Winegrowers Vineyard Register Report 2017–2020 lists just 2ha (5 acres) of Tannat. Trinity Hill in Hawkes Bay was one of the first to plant the variety about 15 years ago but uses it only in blends. De La Terre, also in Hawkes Bay, has been making a varietal Tannat since 2009 using fruit bought from grower David Cranwell, who planted Tannat after finding that a daily glass of Madiran reduced his cholesterol level. It is a French clone (TKO5226) that was apparently imported into New Zealand by ex-All Black Andy Haden, who fell in love with the variety when he was playing rugby in France. Stoneyridge on Waiheke Island also produces a varietal Tannat.

Kim Chalmers of Chalmers vine nursery in Australia reports that the main Tannat clone in Australia is H9V3—“a Davis clone judging by the clone number, and it was introduced in 1969.” Chalmers used to have it in its old nursery vineyard in Euston, New South Wales, but no longer. Of the few producers of Tannat in Australia, she recommends Symphony Hill.

It is also found in Portugal, where there are about 50ha (125 acres), half of that in the Alentejo; in Sicily, in Hungary, and in California, where it was pioneered by Tablas Creek in Paso Robles; in Switzerland, South Africa, and Japan.

Conclusion: Vivat Tannat

Tannat clones may be relatively homogenous, and the variety’s fruit character less distinctive and dominant than that of Cabernet Sauvignon or Syrah, for example, but it produces fresh, well-structured wines that seem to express climatic differences particularly well, whether in its French homeland, in cool, green Uruguay, in the high-elevation vineyards of Argentina, or in its many adoptive homes. Tannat’s famous tannins are shaped not only by climate but also by winemaking choices, resulting in a range of styles, from lively and refreshing, to dense and ageworthy. In Uruguay, Juanicó’s single-vineyard bottlings are starting to show just how nuanced the variety can be, while Garzón’s wines from the country’s youngest region suggest that there are many new horizons throughout South America. Vivat Tannat!

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Given the serious scandal that erupted in late March in Montalcino over the “improvement” of Brunellos with Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot (just the latest Italian absurdity), it might have been difficult to focus attention on the anteprime, the first look at the new vintages of Tuscany’s main DOCGs. What made it easy, in the event, were the conclusions to which the tastings gave rise.

The dominant theme running through both the Chiantis and the Brunellos was Sangiovese’s star role. Tuscany’s noble variety, its thoroughbred — the backbone of Chianti Classico, Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, and Brunello and Rosso di Montalcino — returned to put its distinctive stamp not only on Brunello, whose production code specifies its exclusive use, but also on Chianti Classico. Over the past decade or so, this became the wine of 1,001 styles, like the Super-Tuscans, thanks to a production code that allows up to 20 percent of other grapes (read Bordeaux varieties).

I warmly welcome those wines that are once again allowing Sangiovese to sing. Yes, die-hards out there continue to push to the limit the “correction” of their Chiantis with “improving varieties.” The results are no doubt impressive in some cases, but such producers sacrifice terroir character, the wine’s quota of “somewhereness,” on the altar of the international.

Nevertheless, a new wind is blowing, ushering in a Sangiovese renaissance and a return to Chianti Classico in the venerable Tuscan style. Renaissance does not mean a revival of unexciting, old-fashioned Chiantis, nor those old, kitschy, straw-covered bottles, nor wines with no ambition or soul. Instead, thanks to serious research into Sangiovese (particularly the Consorzio’s Chianti 2000 project), it means a better appreciation of the qualities of this variety than was possible in the past. Tuscany can gradually distance itself from international varieties, free Chianti Classico from its Super-Tuscan bondage, and restore to the variety the unique aromatics, crisp succulence, and goût de terroir that were largely stripped from it over the past 15 years.

The tastings of Chianti Classico revealed that 2006 is one of those vintages that deserve the consumer’s attention and confidence, as well as those of industry professionals most attuned to Tuscany’s soul. Many of these wines offered delicious drinkability and unalloyed pleasure (all the more remarkable in that many were present only as barrel samples): a bright, purple-ruby color, less concentrated than in recent years; clean, fresh, well-defined aromas; an exquisite balance of acidity, tannin, and crisp, ripe, succulent fruit, with dark cherry in full spate; a fleshy, round mouthfeel; and excellent harmony, sapidity, and varietal typicity, with generous underbrush, lily, and violets.

Among the best 2006s were offerings from Badia a Coltibuono, Bibbiano, Casa Emma, Castello di San Donato in Perano, Castello di Vichiomaggio, Concadoro, Felsina, Fontodi, Isole e Olena, Monteraponi, Querciabella, San Felice, San Giusto a Rentennano, and Tenuta di Liliano. Also worthy of attention were Castelli del Grevepesa (its 100 percent Sangiovese Clemente VII vineyard selection), and two outsiders — Spadaio e Piecorto in Barberino Val d’Elsa, and Castellinuzza e Piuca in Greve’s Lamole area.

Retasting 2005 Chianti Classicos after a year and more in the bottle was also very encouraging, even if the 2006s have an extra gear that will propel them into a brighter, longer future. In 2005 there were excellent performances by Bibbiano and Castellinuzza e Piuca, while Castello di Tornano, Il Molino di Grace, Monteraponi, Ormanni, Pieve di Campoli, and Rocca di Montegrossi also deserve plaudits.

The 2005 Vino Nobiles left much to be desired, so we will skip over Montepulciano to Montalcino, where the superb 2006 vintage has made a clear winner, for once, of that zone’s “second wine,” Rosso di Montalcino. Helped by the far-from-thrilling results of the 2003 Brunellos, the 2006 Rossos become the chief attraction for Brunello lovers, with 3.5 million bottles coming on to the market at a range of prices and in a variety of styles — from the simplest through to fuller-bodied wines fully capable of improving over five to ten years in the cellar.

The number of Brunello samples swells every year (150, plus 20 or so vineyard selections), but overall 2003 was decidedly disappointing. Many were devoid of the character, complexity, harmony, and nobility that one expects of such a celebrated wine. Many displayed evidence of heavyhanded intervention, with generous help from younger vintages (2004 or 2005) to freshen up cooked, tired wines. There were awkward acids, overripe fruit, green tannins that will never soften, and clumsy, excessive oak. Fortunately, I found some exceptions — wines that were well balanced, well made, with complexity, harmony, and sapidity. These were from Abbadia Ardenga, Gianni Brunelli, Capanna, Citille di Sopra, Col d’Orcia, Le Gode, Pecci Celestino, Pinino, Poggio dell’Aquila, Tenuta Le Potazzine, Uccelliera, and Villa a Tolli.

Only a notch behind were Innocenti, Le Macioche, Il Marroneto, Poggio Antico, Sesta di Sopra, Tenuta di Sesta, and Vasco Sassetti. There were outstanding wines, too, from Case Basse, Poggio di Sotto, and Giulio Salvioni, tasted on visits to the cellars.

In contrast to 2003 Brunello, which suffered from a torrid, near-tropical summer, 2006 Rosso di Montalcino displays the elegance, succulence, fleshy, savory fruit, and overall harmony that the more serious wines from the hotter vintage could not (with only a few exceptions) achieve.

High, even full, marks to the likes of Abbadia Ardenga, Argiano, Brunelli, Campogiovanni, Capanna, Col d’Orcia, Il Colle, Fuligni, Lambardi, Lisini, Il Marroneto, Mastrojanni, Il Poggione, Pinino, Quercecchio, Sesta di Sopra, Siro Pacenti, Tenute Nardi, Terre Nere, Uccelliera, and Villa a Tolli.

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