Verdelho - Madeira, Portugal; Canary Islands, Spain & California, USA

Several months ago, I wrote a post about the Sercial grape, in which I indicated that  I was planning a series of posts that would deal with the major grapes used in the production of Madeira.  That project is taking longer than I would have liked, but today I'd like to continue it with a look at another of the "classic" Madeira grapes, Verdelho.  In my Sercial post, I briefly outlined the history of Madeira wine, and readers interested in that topic are advised to read through that post, as today I'm more interested in taking a look at what makes Madeira different from other wines, and to do that we need to take a closer look at how it is made.

Before it was the name of a wine, Madeira was the name of a place, namely an island group about 600 miles west of Portugal.  It was one of the last stops for European ships on their way to the Americas, and many of them stocked up on the wines of the islands before setting off on their journeys.  In the early days, the wines made on the Madeira Islands were ordinary table wines, but it was found that they spoiled very quickly on board the ships, as they were stored in large barrels and exposed to the elements, particularly the sun, which deteriorated them rapidly.  Eventually it was found that adding brandy to the wines helped them last longer while on board traveling ships, but even these fortified wines eventually cooked in the merciless sun in the middle of the ocean.  While the resulting product was very different from everyday wine, it was found that it picked up some new and interesting flavors not found in any other wines, and many people began to develop a taste for it.  In particular, the US Colonies were very fond of these wines from Madeira and became a large export market for them.

Up until the early 20th Century, some Madeira houses still put barrels of wine on ships in order to properly age them, but virtually no one does that anymore.  Today, there are basically two different methods used to properly age Madeira: estafugem and canteiro.  Estafugem is the quick and dirty method where the wine is placed in large stainless steel vats that are heated either via a hot water jacket on the outside of the tank or by immersing a heating coil in the wine itself.  The vats are sealed, but not filled to capacity and are usually agitated in some way to aid oxidation as well.  The heat is applied for about three months before being bottled.  This method is fast and cheap and is used for the production of low-quality Madeiras, as the secondary flavor characteristics prized by Madeira enthusiasts are at best only hinted at using this method.

The canteiro method is the one preferred for the production of higher quality Madeiras, especially for vintage or varietal Madeiras.  Here, the wines are placed in wooden casks that can vary from 300 to 2500 litres, and the casks are placed in a warm place.  Many lodges place them in lofts or in areas as high as possible (since heat rises, after all), though others just place them outside in the sun.  The casks are typically left alone for at least two years, and the wines made in the canteiro style cannot be sold until at least three years from the January 1st following the harvest.  The casks are not topped up, and most barrels lose about 5% of their liquid each year due to evaporation.  Basic Madeiras sold with the name of one of the four "noble" Madeira grapes, Sercial, Bual, Verdelho or Malmsey, usually go through this process, while vintage Madeiras are typically aged for much, much longer.

As mentioned above, Verdelho is one of the four noble Madeira grapes.  Each of the four noble grapes maps roughly on to a particular style of Madeira with Sercial being the driest, Verdelho the next driest, Bual a little sweeter and Malmsey the sweetest.  The Verdelho of Madeira is not the same as the Verdelho of mainland Portugal, which is now known as Gouveio (or Godello, in Spain).  The Madeira Verdelho is also widely grown in the Azores, and it is thought that vines from the Azores were brought to Australia in the 19th Century.  Verdelho is still relatively widely planted throughout Australia, to the extent that the Australian Alternative Varieties Wine Show does not consider Verdelho to be an alternative variety and will not consider entries made from it.  I must admit that I came across more examples of wine made from the Verdelho grape than I had anticipated, but in the end decided it was still unusual enough to merit inclusion here.

The first wine that I tried was the 2005 Twisted Oak Verdelho made from grapes grown in the Silvaspoons Vineyard in Lodi, California, which I picked up from my friends over at the Gypsy Kitchen for about $16.  As mentioned in my recent post on Torrontés, the Silvaspoons Vineyard is owned and maintained by Ron Silva, who primarily grows Portuguese grape varieties there.  In the glass, this wine was a light silvery lemon color with greenish tints. The nose was fairly reserved with some green apple and lemon-lime citrus fruits along with some slighly oaky and buttery aromas as well.  On the palate the wine was on the fuller side of medium with fairly low acidity.  There were flavors of vanilla, ripe pear, buttery pie dough, ripe apple, coconut and pineapple candy.  I had half expected that the wine would be shot as it was 7 years old when I tried it, but it was drinking very well.  It's not really my style of wine, though, as the low acid and prominent oak are a deadly combination for my taste buds.  Fans of moderately oaked California Chardonnay will find a lot to like here, though, especially for the money.

The next wine that I tried was the 2007 Bodegas Viñátigo Verdello from the Ycoden Daute Isadora region on the western tip of the Tenerife island in the Canary Island chain.  I picked this wine up for around $32 from my friends at the Spirited Gourmet.  In the glass the wine was a fairly deep bronze-gold color.  The nose was fairly intense with leesy aromas of red apple, pear and honey with a little nuttiness and a little cheesy funk as well.  On the palate the wine was medium bodied with fairly high acidity.  There were flavors of toasted almonds and sawdust along with some honey, red apple, dried apple, dried apricot and baking spice.  This is a wine that really needs to be served as close to room temperature as you can manage, as it is harsh and spare when chilled too much.  As it warms up, though, the spice and dried fruits really become more apparent and the wine becomes much more generous and appealing.  It's not a cheap wine, but it is both good and interesting, which are the two major requirements I have for wines in this price range.

The final wine that I tried was the NV Vinhos Barbeito "Savannah Verdelho" from their Historic Series, which set me back about $40.  As a proud Georgia native, I was gratified to learn about the strong history of Madeira in the city of Savannah.  In addition to being a major port city for the import of Madeira wine in the early days of America, the city was (and I believe still is) the home to the Madeira Club of Savannah, a group of Madeira enthusiasts who gather monthly to drink fine old Madeiras, dine together and discuss issues of the day.  While this wine probably wouldn't be served at one of their functions, I found it plenty enjoyable.  In the glass the wine was a dark, deep tawny-brown color.  The nose was very intense with powerful roasted nut and burnt sugar aromas.  On the palate the wine was on the fuller side of medium with high acid and medium sweetness.  There were zippy flavors of green apple, tasted walnuts and pecans, burnt sugar and smoke along with a slight salinity as well.  This wine was exceptionally balanced with an electric vein of acidity that really supported the sugar and nutty fruits.  This would be amazing with nutty desserts like pecan pie or baklava, but would also be nice with salty, funky cheeses as well.

Much of the discussion about the methods of producing Madeira wine is adapted from Trevor Elliott's The Wines of Madeira, which interested readers can order here.

Torrontés - Silvaspoons Vineyard, Alta Mesa, California

On this day two years ago, I decided to start this wine blog.  Throughout the two years that I've been drinking, researching and writing about unusual grapes and wines, I've learned an amazing amount and met some really nice and interesting people.  I've been humbled that people choose to read and respond to the stuff that I write here, and I've really tried to make the content on this site worthy of other people's time and attention.  The very first grape that I wrote about on this blog was Torrontés, and I wrote that post after quickly scanning the Wikipedia entry on the grape, and then banged out a few tasting notes from memory.  It's the worst researched and probably the worst written post on the site, but I can't bring myself to take it down.  I've wanted to re-write several of those early posts, but have had so many new wines to write about, that I just haven't had the chance.  Today I'd like to rectify that and am going to write a new Torrontés post from scratch, taking a look at a very interesting California Torrontés in the process.

Torrontés is the most widely planted white grape in Argentina as of 2008 and has become a bit of a minor phenomenon on the US marketplace.  It is certainly not as easy to find as Malbec, but chances are good that if your local wine shop has a white wine from Argentina, it's probably a Torrontés.  But which Torrontés?  It turns out that there are three different Torrontés cultivars grown in Argentina: Torrontés Riojano, Torrontés Sanjuanino and Torrontés Mendocino.  Each is named for a different province of Argentina, with Riojano corresponding to La Rioja (and not the Rioja in Spain), Sanjuanino corresponding to San Juan and Mendocino corresponding to Mendoza (and not the county in California).  There are also a few grapes grown in Spain with Torrontes as a synonym (most notably Albillo Mayor and the Terrantez grape of Madeira), but these Spanish Torrontes grapes are not related to the Argentine grapes.

Torrontés Riojano is the most important cultivar commercially, and, for the most part, when you buy a bottle of Argentine Torrontés this is the grape that's in your glass.  Torrontés Sanjuanino has many of the same aromatic qualities that make Torrontés Riojano so popular, but it produces lower yields than Torrontés Riojano, so growers aren't as keen to plant it.  Torrontés Mendocino lacks the explosive aroma profile of the other two Torrontés cultivars and is only really cultivated in southern Argentina, when it is grown at all.  Torrontés Riojano and Torrontés Sanjuanino are also grown to some extent in Chile where they are known as Torentel and Moscatel de Austria respectively.  At this point, you may be wondering exactly what the relationship between these three grapes actually is.  Are they different clones of a single grape or are they different grapes?  And if they're different grapes, are they actually related to one another or are the names misleading?

In 2003, two teams of scientists from Argentina and from UC Davis in California set out to discover the relationships between these three grapes (citation 1 below).  They found that each had a genetically distinct DNA profile, and were thus separate cultivars.  They also found that Torrontés Riojano and Torrontés Sanjuanino are full siblings and that both resulted from a cross between Muscat of Alexandria and Criolla Chica, which is actually the same grape as the Mission grape of California, or the Listan Negro grape of the Canary Islands (they also found a few other grapes whose parents are Muscat of Alexandria and Criolla Chica, but those grapes aren't really important here).  Torrontés Mendocino is a half-sibling of the other two Torrontés cultivars, as it has Muscat of Alexandria as one parent, but its other parent is unknown.  The authors believe that the crossings that created each of the Torrontés cultivars probably happened in South America, since there is no European grape that is a genetic match to any of them.

Torrontés is grown virtually nowhere outside of South America, but apparently grape grower Ron Silva, who usually specializes in Portuguese grapes, has planted some Torrontés in his Silvaspoons Vineyard in the Alta Mesa region of Lodi, California.  Silva mostly sells the grapes he grows to California wineries, and one of his customers is Matthew Rorick of Forlorn Hope Wines.  Forlorn Hope makes wines from a host of unusual grape varieties and is committed to minimal intervention in the winery.  Rorick uses only natural yeasts and older, neutral barrels in the winery, and if the Torrontés that I tried from him is any indication, he's not that into filtering his wines either (which is a good thing, as far as I'm concerned).

I was able to find a bottle of the 2009 Forlorn Hope "La Gitana" Torrontés from my friends at the Spirited Gourmet for around $28.  In the glass this wine was a medium lemon gold color and was a little hazy.  On the nose the wine was fairly intense with aromas of honeysuckle flower, peach, pineapple, tea leaves and lime.  The perfume was gorgeous and heady and almost a shame to drink.  On the palate the wine was medium body with fairly low acid.  There were flavors of waxy pear, honeysuckle flower, peach skin, orange blossom and beeswax.  The wine was delicate and subtle, but also incredibly complex.  This wine only needs a slight chill, if you want to chill it at all, as it shuts down at very cold temperatures, but when it's in the zone, it's an amazing, beautiful wine.  Many of the Torrontés based wines from Argentina can be very short or bitter on the palate and though they are almost all very perfumy and aromatic, I find that most of them end up disappointing me when I go to actually drink them.  This wine, though, is amazing the whole way through and is easily the best Torrontés-based wine that I've ever had.  Yes, it is going to run you more than the Argentine versions, but it's worth every penny.  Production is very limited on most of the Forlorn Hope wines, but if you happen to run across this, do not hesitate to pull the trigger.

CITATION

1) Aguero, CB, Rodriguez, JG, Martinez, LE, Dangl, GS, & Meredity, CP.  2003.  Identity and parentage of Torrontés cultivars in Argentina.  American Journal of Enology and Viticulture, 54(4), pp 318-321.

Grenache Gris - Cotes Catalanes, France & Mendocino, California, USA

I don't know why, but it turns out that some grapes are more genetically unstable than others.  Pinot is perhaps the most famous example as most wine drinkers have enjoyed Pinots Noir, Blanc and Gris at some point in their wine drinking careers and are aware that each of them is just a berry color mutation from the same plant (interestingly, any one of the berry colors is capable of mutating into any of the others, meaning that the Gris vine can mutate into Noir or Blanc while the Blanc vine can mutate into Gris or Noir, etc.).  Pinot isn't the only grape that can perform this little color-changing trick, but it is probably the only one where all three of its color variations have gone on to become world class grapes in their own right.  Grape "families" like Terret and Traminer (aka Savagnin) are also examples of vines that are prone to mutation, but they certainly are less well known than the Pinot group.

The Grenache vine is also genetically unstable and prone to various mutations, though the members of its mutated family tree aren't quite as well known as Pinot's.  We've taken a look at the white-berried member of the family, Grenache Blanc, here before.  Grenache Blanc is fairly widely planted, but it is generally used as a blending grape and is rarely seen in varietal form.  Grenache Gris is the pink-berried form of Grenache, and it is much more difficult to come by.  Pierre Galet, in his A Practical Ampelography, tells us that in 1968, Grenache Noir was planted on about 130,000 acres in France, Grenache Blanc was planted on about 23,000 acres while Grenache Gris was planted on only about 9,000 acres.  I'm not sure what more recent planting statistics would look like, but I'd be surprised if Grenache Gris had gained any significant ground in the past fifty years.  It is also grown to a limited extent in Spain, where it is known as Garnacha Roja or Garnacha Dorada.

As with the Pinot grapes, whether or not one considers the different colored forms of the grapes as separate varieties is somewhat contentious.  Pretty much all wine drinkers regard them as separate varieties since the wines made from each are so clearly different from one another.  The regulatory bodies of different European countries also regard each differently colored berry form as a distinct variety and limit which of them can be grown in certain areas.  Most botanists and plant geneticists, though, regard them as a single variety since they are virtually genetically identical and cannot be differentiated by most modern DNA techniques.  The scientific term is a "sport," which is used to describe a part of a plant that looks different from the rest of the plant.  When the initial mutation happens on a given vine, the bunch that has pink grapes instead of red or white grapes is a sport, and the growers then make a cutting from that portion of the vine and plant that cutting in the hopes that the new vine will produce all or mostly pink grapes.

The issue is really what kind of standard we want to use to determine what is or is not a grape variety.  From a botanist's or a plant geneticist's point of view, the color of the grapes is pretty much irrelevant.  Think about a flowering plant that may have red and white flowers on it.  The actual color of the flowers doesn't matter and isn't a determining factor in the identity of the plant.  Some plants just produce flowers that are different colors and some plants produce grapes that are different colors.  The difference is that grapes are then used to make wine and the color of the grapes matters for the production of wine in a way that the color of a flower really doesn't.  From a purely biological perspective, then, the color of the grapes is irrelevant to determining the identity of a given vine, but from a utilitarian perspective, it matters a lot.  Grenache Noir and Grenache Gris are the same plant to a scientist, but they're very different to a winemaker and to a consumer and this is definitely sufficient grounds to consider them as different varieties.

The question becomes a bit more difficult when you look at the "hairy" members of each family.  Pinot Meunier is actually a chimeric mutation of Pinot Noir where there is a kind of downy hair on the leaves of the plant.  Grenache has its own hairy mutation known as Garnacha Peluda or Lledoner Pelut, which also has little white hairs on the undersides of its leaves.  For these plants, the mutation that leads to the difference in the way the vines look is located not only the berries but on the leaves.  It is difficult to make a case for considering Garnacha Peluda as a separate grape variety since wines made from it and from Grenache Noir would, presumably, be essentially the same.  Garnacha Peluda is currently listed as a separate variety in the VIVC, but it would probably make more sense to regard it as a clone of Grenache Noir rather than a separate variety.

Like its counterpart Pinot Gris, most of the wine made from Grenache Gris grapes is white.  I was able to find a bottle of the 2009 Domaine des 3 Vallees Grenache Gris, which is made in this style, for about $11.  This wine is from the Cotes Catalanes region, which is a tiny little area in southwestern France with Spain to its west and the Mediterranean to its south (map).  In the glass the wine was a medium golden lemon color.  The nose was moderately aromatic with some white pear fruit and a vegetal herbaceousness that reminded me of braised celery.  On the palate the wine was on the fuller side of medium with fairly low acidity.  There were broad, creamy pear and ripe apple fruits with some grassy herbaceousness and something like stewed vegetables.  The wine was very pithy and bitter and became more and more difficult to drink.  Even at $11, this is a hard wine to recommend as at its best it tasted of bland, washed out white fruits, but the lingering and persistent bitterness was what ultimately turned me off of this wine.

The second wine that I tried was actually a rosé wine from the Donkey and Goat winery of Mendocino, California, which I picked up from my friends at the Spirited Gourmet for about $20.    This wine is made from vines that are over 95 years old.  The grapes are stomped to crush them and the juice was left in contact with the skins for 33 hours before being pressed off.  For comparison's sake, the Petit Verdot rosé I tried in this post was on the skins for only 8 hours.  In the glass the wine was a pale pink color with orange tints.  The nose was fairly intense with fresh cut strawberry, rainier cherry and crushed raspberry fruits.  On the palate the wine was medium bodied with medium acidity.  There were flavors of creamy strawberry, watermelon, light red cherry and pear fruits.  The style of the wine was somewhere between a white wine and a rosé.  It was light, delicate and very delicious.  The wine is a little expensive for a rosé, but it's definitely worth it.  It would be good with a variety of foods but I actually enjoyed this wine most when I was drinking it on its own.

Marsanne - Victoria, Australia and Paso Robles, California

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the Cortese grape and was promptly called out on Twitter by my friend Tom whose blog you can read here.   His good-natured charge against me was that Cortese wasn't an unusual enough grape and Gavi wasn't a Fringe enough wine for me to be writing about.  Since this is pretty much the only limiting criteria that I have for content on my site, it's a question that I take very seriously and one that I struggle with on a regular basis.  Just what grapes and wines are unusual enough to write about here?  It's pretty obvious for the most part whether a certain grape or wine is suitable for inclusion, but there are some gray areas that are difficult to navigate.  My general rule of thumb is that I try to feature wines and grapes that the average American wine drinker (not out of any kind of pro-USA chauvinism but rather out of a kind of lack of international imagination on my part) would find unusual, but "the average wine drinker" is a difficult entity to pin down.  The farther I go down the unusual wine rabbit-hole, the farther away I find myself from the "average" wine drinker and the harder it gets for me to imagine what someone labeled as such might think about a given topic.  

It's a question that I've struggled with since day one and my notebooks are littered with entries on grapes like Silvaner, Müller-Thurgau, Roussanne and Marsanne which fall right into the grey zone for me between common grapes and unusual ones.  I've obviously decided to throw caution to the wind today and write about the Marsanne grape, and there are a few things that helped to tip the scales in this particular case.  The first thing is that the two wines I'm taking a look at are pure varietal wines made from 100% Marsanne grapes.  Marsanne is generally used as a blending grape not only in its original home in the northern Rhone Valley but also in many of the new world areas where it has established itself to a limited extent.  It is usually partnered with Roussane and Viognier in the white wines of the northern Rhone, though up to 15% Marsanne is allowed in the red wines of the Hermitage region.  Some varietal wines are made from Marsanne in the Rhone Valley, but they can be difficult to find since most wines are labeled by appellation and not by grape there, and not all producers indicate the varietal breakdown on the back label.

The second thing is that neither of the wines that I'll be writing about are actually from the Rhone Valley, or France for that matter.  France has about 1200 hectares planted to Marsanne (very close, incidentally, to the 1100 that Italy has planted to Cortese), and the overwhelming majority of the plantings are in the Rhone Valley (the rest are scattered in limited quantites among Savoie, Languedoc and Provence).  Marsanne is actually the most widely planted white grape in the Hermitage region and takes up a significant amount of land in the nearby regions of Crozes-Hermitage, St. Joseph and St. Péray.  Today's wines, though, come from the new world areas of Australia and California whose vinous reputations are definitely built on the backs of other grapes.  Before getting to those wines, though, I'd like to take a closer look at the Marsanne grape itself.

As mentioned above, in its native Rhone Valley, Marsanne is typically blended with Roussanne and Viognier for white wine production.  Given the similarity in their names, I wondered whether Roussanne and Marsanne were somehow related, but apart from a few off-hand references to the grapes as "siblings," I can't find anything definitive on the matter.  I took a look at the DNA profiles on file at the VIVC database and there's an awful lot of overlap between not only Marsanne and Roussanne, but also with Viognier.  The grapes all have at least one match at each of the six loci shown which would seem to suggest some kind of relationship, but it's difficult to say exactly what the relationship might be without more data.

Marsanne is a relatively high yielding vine which has caused many growers to devote more acreage to it than to its companion Roussanne, which yields less generously and more erratically, in the northern Rhone Valley.  It is prized for its rich body and heady perfume but can suffer from a lack of acidity if grown carelessly or in excessively warm areas.  Outside of France (but still within Europe) Marsanne can be found in limited quantities in Switzerland, where it is sometimes known as Ermitage, and northeastern Spain, where it is known as Marsana.  The explosion of interest in Rhone varieties in the 1980s led to limited plantings of the grape in California as well, but it is probably in Australia where Marsanne finds its truest expression outside of the Rhone Valley.  Though there are less than 250 hectares devoted to it in Australia, some of the vines there are thought to be among the oldest Marsanne vines on earth.

Tahbilk Winery, who made the first wine I'd like to take a look at, can trace some of their Marsanne vines back as far as 1927.  I was able to find a bottle of the 2006 "Museum Release" Marsanne from my friends at Curtis Liquors for about $15.  In the glass this wine was a medium greenish-gold color.  The nose was fairly intense with ripe apple, honeysuckle flower, ripe pear and nutty vanilla with a biscuitty, pastry-like aroma as well.  This wine had obviously spent some time in oak and was wearing it pretty loudly.  On the palate the wine was full bodied with fairly high acidity.  There were flavors of lemon, apple and pear fruit along with some honeysuckle, creamy vanilla and pie crust.  Again, the oak was apparent, but it was much more thoroughly integrated into the flavor of the wine than into its aroma.  Despite the wine's heft on the palate and Marsanne's propensity towards flabbiness, this wine was very deft and balanced with a lovely vein of acidity that really held it together.  At $15, this wine is an absolute steal that I could see developing even more in the bottle for another decade or so.

The second wine that I tried was the 2010 Ambyth Estate Marsanne from Paso Robles California.  This wine is distributed by MBJ Wine Group, who provided me with this sample bottle gratis and with whom I do have something of a professional relationship.*  Ambyth Estate is a biodynamic producer that focuses on Rhone varieties and is committed to "natural winemaking" practices, meaning minimal intervention and, in this case, no added sulfites.  In the glass the wine was a fairly deep lemon gold color with a bit of haze to it.  The nose was moderately intense with delicate aromas of honey, honeysuckle, peach and ripe red apples on their way towards cider.  On the palate the wine was medium bodied with medium acidity.  The flavors were also delicate and subtle with ripe apple and apricot fruits along with a touch of honeysuckle and apple cider.  The wine presented an interesting mixture of delicacy and perhaps light oxidation.  It's a lithe, nimble wine that is a very different animal than the big, oaky example from Australia above.


*I am essentially an editorial consultant with them, for which I do receive slight compensation.  I have not received any compensation for this review, however, and any opinions I express about this wine are my own honest feelings and do not necessarily represent the thoughts or opinions of MBJ Wine Group.

Aligoté - Burgundy, France and California & Washington, USA

Burgundy is a land of favored sons and ugly step children, of superstars and also-rans.  There are four grapes that are grown within this area, but two of them get all of the acclaim.  For the red grapes, Pinot Noir is the unquestionable star to Gamay's second fiddle, while for the white grapes, Chardonnay is the golden boy to Aligoté's red-headed step-child.  Acclaim for Burgundian wines made from Pinot Noir or Chardonnay is widespread and the prices for the best of these wines often reach stratospheric levels.  The best wines made from Gamay or Aligoté, by contrast, are little commented on and generally will cost you less than $20.  The class distinction between the two groups is clear and almost universally recognized by critics and connoisseurs alike.

Of the two outcasts, Aligoté has it much worse than Gamay, though.  Wines made from the Gamay grape are much more widely available to consumers than wines made from Aligoté, and you are likely to find a bottle of Gamay everywhere from your local grocery store to your favorite specialty wine shop.  Furthermore, Gamay has been given its own sub-section within Burgundy, the Beaujolais region, where it is allowed to be king.  Aligoté is given only a single village, Bouzeron (in the Côte Chalonnaise), to be a star in and wines made anywhere else within the Burgundy region can carry the general Bourgogne Aligoté label only.  Since wines made from the Aligoté grape are not entitled to any AOC classification above the general Bourgogne Aligoté, those who do grow it tend to grow it on poorer sites, such as the valley floors or the tops of the hills, where the grapes are not able to ripen properly.  Since the AOC laws allow for so much more specificity in labeling wines made from Chardonnay grapes, and since specificity in Burgundy generally means  higher prices, it makes much more fiscal sense for the growers to give Chardonnay the prime spots and relegate Aligoté to the fringes.  As a result, the wines made from those Aligoté grapes can be good, but are rarely world-class, so the growers and officials feel justified in their assessment of Aligoté as a second class grape and nobody clamors to elevate its status within the region.  The Oxford Companion to Wine offers the opinion that if it were planted on the choicest sites in Burgundy, "Aligoté could produce fine dry whites with more nerve than most Chardonnays," but concludes that this isn't practical not only for the reason outlined above, but also because these days Chardonnay has more commercial clout than any other white grape by virtue of its name alone.

It's kind of interesting that Aligoté is primarily known for its second-class citizen status in Burgundy because its plantings within Burgundy account for only a tiny fraction of its plantings worldwide.  There are about 1700 hectares of Aligoté in Burgundy (compared to nearly 13,000 for Chardonnay), but worldwide there are over 45,000 hectares of land planted to the grape, making it the 22nd most planted grape in the world.  The overwhelming majority of this land is in eastern Europe, though, in places like Romania (which has over 6000 ha of land planted to Aligoté), Ukraine, Russia and Moldova.  Since we almost never see these wines on our shelves here in the States, we still tend to view Aligoté in the context of its role in Burgundy, where it is more prized as an ingredient in a Kir cocktail (together with creme de cassis) than as a white wine.

I used a couple of family metaphors above when describing how the four Burgundian grapes relate to one another, and there's a very good reason for that.  It turns out that all four grapes are related to one another in a very interesting way.  In 1999, a UC Davis research team published a paper that showed that Pinot and another grape called Gouais Blanc were the parents of an astonishing number of French grapes (Bowers, J., Boursiquot, J., This, P., Chu, K., Johansson, H., & Meredith, C. (1999). Historical Genetics: The Parentage of Chardonnay, Gamay, and Other Wine Grapes of Northeastern France. Science, 285(5433), 1562).  Among those offspring were Chardonnay, Gamay Noir and Aligoté, among a slew of others.  Meaning that those three grapes are essentially "siblings" with Pinot as the father (this study did the research to prove the mother-father relationship between the grapes).  Eagle eyed readers may note that I've only indicated Pinot as the father, rather than Pinot Noir, Blanc or Gris.  The reason is that the techniques used for these pedigree studies is unable to differentiate between clonal variants of a given cultivar.  When samples of Pinot Noir, Pinot Blanc and Pinot Gris are analyzed using this technique, they all come back as identical since the lighter berried grapes are merely skin color mutations of Pinot Noir.  These studies, then, cannot say conclusively that Pinot Noir was the father of these grapes, but since it has had the longest history within the region, there's every reason to think that it is.

I was able to find and try three different wines made from the Aligoté grape.  The first was the 2009 René Cacheux et Fils Bourgogne Aligoté which I picked up for about $14.  In the glass the wine had a pale silvery lemon color.  The nose was moderately aromatic with green apple and lemon-lime citrus fruits with a kind of biscuitty, pie-dough sort of element to it.  On the palate the wine was medium bodied with fairly high acidity.  There were citrusy fruits (leaning slightly more towards lime than lemon) with creamy pear and that same biscuitty kind of flavor.  The wine finished with a nice clean, steely kind of minerality.  Of the three I tried, this was the most balanced.  Aligoté is a high-acid grape which can be difficult to tame if the fruit isn't entirely ripe.  This wine reigned the acid in nicely and had a nice core of simple fruit that was tasty and refreshing.  It's not the kind of wine that will change your life, but it is a very nice value wine at less than $15 per bottle.  I spotted this wine on the shelf at several different shops within the Boston area so it should be easily findable for those interested.

The second wine that I tried was the 2008 Jed Steele "Shooting Star" Aligoté, which is vinified in California from fruit grown in Washington state.  Retail on this bottle was also about $14.  In the glass the wine was a silvery lemon color.  The nose was nicely aromatic with lemon citrus and grapefruit along with a leesy, cheesy, buttermilk kind of aroma.  Oz Clarke, in his Grapes and Vines, does say that Aligoté can have a kind of buttermilk tang to it, and once you read that sentence, you'll swear you smell and taste it in almost every Aligoté you ever come across.  On the palate the wine was light bodied with screamingly high acidity.  There were lemon, green apple and under-ripe pineapple fruits with a touch of coconut with a sour, really funky cheesy aspect to it.  I have in my notes that this was "like battery acid and bad cheese," and even sitting here writing this note I'm wincing from the memory of this wine.  I do love high acid whites, but this was tooth-strippingly acidic with a bit too much funk for my tastes.  It was a struggle not only to finish the bottle, but even to finish each glass and is not the kind of thing I'd recommend to anyone.

The third wine that I tried was from one of my favorite producers, Calera, located on Mt. Harlan in California.  Ever since I read the book The Heartbreak Grape, which profiles owner and winemaker Josh Jensen, I've been following this estate with great interest.  Their Pinot Noirs are fantastic and are among some of my all time favorite wines.  This Aligoté is made from estate fruit that is grown on only 3 acres of land.  The wine is aged for six months in older oak barrels and undergoes 100% malolactic fermentation.   They made only 116 cases of this wine in 2009, and I picked this bottle up from my friends at Curtis Liquors for about $23.  In the glass the wine had a lemon gold color with some greenish tints.  The nose was reserved with ripe apple and pineapple fruit and subtle leesy kind of aroma that smelled a little like buttermilk.  On the palate the wine was on the fuller side of medium with medium acidity.  There were flavors of ripe baked apples and creamy pear with some pastry dough and dairy-ish (buttermilk again?) notes as well.  This was a very good wine that I really enjoyed, but I would have liked to see a bit more acid in it.  In reviewing the 2010 batch of wines, Robert Parker remarked "Calera has once again made the finest Aligoté in America."  It's certainly the best American Aligoté that I've tasted, but for my money, the Burgundian example was the real winner, especially at almost $10 less than this example.  I did really like this wine, though, and have actually turned the label into a coaster for my end table at home.

Counoise - Vin de Pays du Gard, France and Lake County, California

Counoise is one of those grapes that you may have already had, though  you might not be aware of it.  It finds its way into wines in such small proportions that not only would the winemaker probably not bother to mention its inclusion on the wine's label, but even if they did, it would have been nearly impossible to really  get a sense for what the grape tastes like.  It is perhaps best known in the Châteauneuf-du-Pape region of France, where it is one of the thirteen varieties allowed in the region's red wines.  Many Châteauneuf-du-Pape producers don't give any indication on their bottles what grapes and proportions are used in their wines, though, so it may be hard for one to say definitively whether there's any Counoise in a given bottle.  Château Beaucastel is a famous exception as they are well known for using all thirteen varieties in their wine and, according to their website, their final blend typically contains about 10% Counoise.  On the whole, though, the chances of a little Counoise ending up in your average Châteauneuf-du-Pape bottle aren't all that good.  Less than 1% of the total vineyard area of Châteauneuf-du-Pape is planted to the Counoise grape.  Counoise can also be found throughout some of the other regions of Southern France like Languedoc-Roussillon, but not in any significant numbers.  In 2000, there were only about 1500 acres (about 640 hectares) planted to the grape in all of France.

Exactly where the grape ultimately came from isn't known, but there is a story that the grape may have come come into France via Spain.  The story goes that a papal office made an offering of the grape to Pope Urban V during the period of time (the 14th Century) that the papacy was located in Avignon (whence Châteuneuf-du-Pape, or "the Pope's new castle," gets its name).  The grape was spread throughout the region and used primarily as a blending grape until the late 19th Century when the Château la Nerthe estate began to use it more heavily.  Their example wasn't followed by other producers, though, until Beaucastel decided to increase its presence in their blend.

It has never been a star in Châteauneuf-du-Pape (or anywhere, really), for a variety of reasons.  The main reason is that it is only an average yielder so it never really caught on in the more productive regions of southern France in the way that Carignan did.  Further, wine made from the grape oxidizes easily and lacks tannic structure, so it isn't really well suited to lengthy bottle aging.  Since many Chateauneuf-du-Pape bottlings are made to undergo serious cellar time, extensive reliance on high doses of Counoise isn't really feasible.  It does, however, provide nice acidity and a peppery kind of flavor that blends well with Grenache and Syrah, which has probably helped to keep it around in the Châteauneuf-du-Pape vineyards.

I was able to try two wines made predominantly from the Counoise grape.  The first was the Domaine Monpertuis "Vignoble de la Ramiere" which I picked up locally for about $12.  This estate is located within Châteauneuf-du-Pape, though the vineyard that these grapes come from must not be.  It would be legal to bottle a 100% Counoise under the Châteuneuf-du-Pape AOC, but this wine is labeled as a vin de pays, which makes me think that it must fall somewhere outside the boundary.  In the glass the winew as a medium purple-ruby color.  The nose was nicely aromatic with wild strawberry and raspberry fruit along with some tea leaves and a kind of damp leafiness.  On the palate the wine was medium bodied with fairly high acidity and medium tannins.  There were flavors of wild strawberry and stewed red berries along with some leather, wet leaves and chocolate.  The wine was very berryish with an interesting leafy earthiness to it.  It actually reminded me quite a bit of the Mencia grape from Spain.  To go a little more mainstream, it was somewhere between a Loire Valley Cabernet Franc and a light Oregon Pinot Noir.  Those looking for solid, red-berry fruit dominant red wines would be well-served checking this out as it represents a very nice value for only $12.

The second wine that I tried was the 2007 Jed Steele "Writer's Block" Counoise from Lake County, California.  I picked this up over the Christmas holidays near my mother's home in South Carolina for about $17.  There are a handful of California winemakers messing around with the Counoise grape and Jed Steele is one of them.  This wine is about 90% Counoise with the remaining 10% coming from Grenache and Syrah grapes.  The grapes come from a small parcel within the Jacobsen Vineyard owned by the Jed Steele estate.  Those interested in the finer details of the wine-making process for this bottle are directed to the winery's website here.  In the glass the wine was a fairly light ruby color.  The nose was nicely aromatic with briary, brambly raspberry and blackberry fruit fruits with some black cherry and leather.  On the palate the wine was on the fuller side of medium with fairly high acid and fairly low tannins.  There were flavors of black cherry and blackberry fruit with some charcoal, smoke, baking chocolate and cola.  There was a bit of wild strawberry and spicy black pepper, but overall, the flavor profile on this wine was a bit darker than the French version, though it still had a wild, berryish kind of appeal.  I found this version much more deep and interesting and felt that it definitely was worth the extra $5.

Arneis - California and Roero, Piemonte, Italy

Even though the world of wine today is vast and varied, it certainly could have been more so.  Over time, there have been innumerable grapes which have flashed into existence only to wink back out again.  Some of them were probably justifiably ignored while others perhaps just suffered some bad luck.  For the most part we'll never really know much about what we've missed. We can, however, marvel at some of the grapes that are still around today that just barely made it.  Arneis happens to be one of those grapes. 

Arneis is not some Johnny-come-lately that popped up and nearly disappeared in a short period of time.  There are records of this grape that go all the way back to the 15th Century, when the grape was known as Renesium or Ornesio and was sometimes used in the production of sweet wines but most often was used as a softening agent when paired with Nebbiolo grapes in Barolo (and other areas of Piemonte to a lesser extent).  It was such a big part of Barolo production for so long that it came to have the synonym Barolo Bianco.  Since dry white wine production has not historically been very important in Piemonte, there was never much acreage devoted to Arneis since it was used almost exclusively as a very minor blending partner in the region's red wine production.

The acreage really started to drop in the mid 20th Century, though, for a couple of reasons.  First of all, many Barolo producers (and other producers making wine from Nebbiolo) decided that they no longer wanted or needed to use white grapes to try and soften Nebbiolo's sharp corners.  Further, when the DOC and DOCG systems came online, it became mandatory for several of the Nebbiolo based wines of Piemonte (Barolo and Barbaresco most notably) to be made from 100% Nebbiolo.  Blending grapes for these wines were no longer legally acceptable, so demand for them started to fall.  Couple that with Arneis' reputation as a tricky grape to grow and vinify (its name translates as "little rascal" because it's susceptible to mildew, has naturally low acidity, ripens late, oxidizes easily, and is a low yielder to boot), and you've got all of the elements starting to come together for its disappearance.  By the 1970's, the grape was being grown by only two producers and was in danger of extinction.

And then the 1980's happened.  Suddenly consumers wanted dry, still white wines and they wanted them badly.  Many winemakers in Piemonte were left scrambling as the signature white wines of the region were sweet and fizzy.  Bruno Giacosa and the Vietti winery began to make varietal wines from the little bits of Arneis that they had and it turned out that these wines were pretty good.  By 1990, Burton Anderson in his Wine Atlas of Italy, was referring to Arneis as a "rising variety."  Production quadrupled between 1989 and 1998 and as of 2005, vineyard acreage devoted to Arneis had surged beyond 1500 acres.  The Roero region, whose sandy soils are particularly hospitable to Arneis, was elevated to DOCG status in 2005.

I was able to pick up a bottle of the 2009 Vietti Roero Arneis for about $22.  Arneis does not make wines for aging and most examples are stainless steel fermented and are intended to be drunk within three years of the vintage date, though the closer you can get, the better.  In the glass, this wine was a pale silvery lemon color.  The nose was very aromatic with white peach, ripe pear, apple and lemony citrus notes.  On the palate, the wine was on the fuller side of medium with medium acidity.   There were broad, peachy stone fruit flavors and ripe pear flavors with just a touch of lemon.  The wine had a very nice, clean minerally finish.  The profile here was broad, ripe fruit flavors that reminded me a bit of Viognier.  I personally prefer my wines a little sharper than this, but it was very enjoyable and certainly very well made.  This would go well with fish dishes or light pasta dishes, but I'd probably stay away from anything too rich or oily as it doesn't really have the acidity to cut through anything like that.

Arneis is not really grown anywhere else in Italy besides Piemonte, but there are a few plantings here and there in California and Australia.  I was able to find a bottle of the 2009 Enotria Arneis from Mendocino County, California, for about $15. The winery hasn't updated their spec sheet for this wine since the 2002 vintage, but it looks like this is about 90% Arneis with some Friulano and Pinot Blanc blended in.  In the glass, the wine had a medium lemon color with glints of green.  The nose was a little reserved with some green apple and lime peel aromas with a touch of ripe pear and white flowers.  On the palate the wine was full bodied with acidity surprisingly on the higher side of medium.  The palate was dominated by ripe, creamy pear fruit with some white peach and vanilla flavors.  If you've ever had those pears that Harry and David sells that end up so ripe and juicy that you have to eat them with a spoon, then you've probably got a pretty good idea of what this wine tastes like.  Some of the lots of this wine are put into new oak barrels and it's noticeable, but overall it's pretty well integrated.  The acid here makes it a little more versatile and this would probably stand up to cream sauces or to oily fish.

Charbono - Napa, California

One of my favorite posts to write was about the Argentine grape Bonarda, mostly because it was a fascinating subject to research, but also because of that post, I ended up with some excellent information from an Argentine winery about Bonarda's true identity.  I've been to several tastings that have featured Argentine Bonarda since I wrote that and have heard it repeated many times that Italian Bonarda and Argentine Bonarda are one and the same grape (it's also still a widely spread bit of misinformation online as well).  As I discovered in researching the Bonarda and the  Sangue di Giuda posts, there are several different Italian Bonardas, and it seemed very unlikely that any of them were the same as the Argentine variety.  I had pretty much decided for myself that Charbono and Bonarda were the same grape, but I had the wrong Charbono pegged (there are two, one French and one Italian), as my friend from Argentina politely pointed out to me.  If only I had written about California Charbono first, those other posts may have been a bit better informed, but I guess I just happened to find the bottles in the wrong order.  Sometimes the path to discovery is a winding road.  I now have sampled a bottle of California Charbono and in researching it, seem to have finally gotten to the bottom of just what the heck Bonarda, and Charbono for that matter, really is.

It is now thought that Charbono came to California in the 1800's, though just how isn't really clear.  There are some who think it was brought over by a couple of Sonoma winegrowers directly from France in the 1870's.  Others believe that the wine was imported into the US as Barbera by Italian immigrants and the vines were planted and sold as Barbera wines (to some acclaim, as these Barbera bottlings won several medals).  The Barbera mix-up story seems to be the most widely disseminated version and seems to have a bit more evidence behind it.  It was only in the 1930's and 1940's that two UC Davis professors (one of whom was Harold Olmo creator of the Symphony grape) figured out that what was planted as Barbera in many California vineyards, particularly Inglenook, were actually Charbono.  Shortly after the discovery, Inglenook produced the first varietally labeled Charbono in 1941.

But what the heck is Charbono?  As mentioned in the Bonarda post, there is an Italian Charbono and a French Charbono which are unrelated to one another.  Genetic testing done in 1999 confirmed that California Charbono is the same grape as the French Charbono, better known in France as Corbeau aka Douce Noire aka Charbonneau.  It was thought for many years that Charbono and Dolcetto from Piemonte in Italy were the same grape or were at least related somehow, but genetic evidence seems to indicate that this isn't the case.  The common reason given for the confusion is that one of the French names for Charbono, Douce Noire, means "sweet black," and one of the synonyms for Dolcetto in Italy is Dolce Nero, which means the same thing.  That sounds pretty flimsy to me, but that's the story people are telling.  In any case, since independent testing has shown that California Charbono is actually Corbeau and Argentine Bonarda is actually Corbeau, simple logic tells us that California Charbono is the same grape as Argentine Bonarda and is not the same as any of the Italian Bonardas (Croatina, Uva Rara or Bonarda Piemontese), since none of those grapes are identical to Corbeau.

It's funny, though, because the California producers aren't exactly rushing to embrace the Argentine Bonarda connection.  In an article profiling California Charbono producers in Wine Business Monthly, the writer says "the really interesting fact is that Charbono as a varietal wine is produced only in California," which is technically correct since it is bottled as Bonarda in Argentina, but Argentina is not even mentioned in that article, though there are numerous references to the alleged French and Italian connections.  In fact, if you visit the web pages of the wineries listed in the article, not a single one of them mentions Argentina, but they are pretty much all excited to tell you about how few acres of Charbono there are in the world and how they're one of the few producers who bottle it.  Technically they're right, but it's a dishonest technicality based on the fact that the grape is only known as Charbono in California, so yes, there are technically fewer than 100 hectares of Charbono in the world, and yes, technically Charbono is only grown in California.  Because the grape is known as Bonarda in Argentina and Corbeau in France, if they call it Charbono then they're not actually lying when they say those things.  The reality is that Corbeau was not rescued from the brink of extinction by the California winegrowers and it's not some cult grape produced from minuscule holdings in California because it was and is alive and well down in Argentina and there's quite a bit of it being made.

There are a few possible explanations for this silence on the producers.  The first (and most charitable) is that the winery owners and winemakers are simply unaware of the connection between the two grapes.  Given their professions (and the availability of the data), I find that a little hard to swallow.  I've been to enough wineries and spoken to enough winemakers to know that those guys know almost everything there is to know about what they're growing and vinifying.  I think it's most likely that they want to cultivate an air of exclusivity and rarity about Charbono to pique consumer interest and charge a hefty price (you can bet your bottom dollar that if Bonarda were a classic grape in Argentina and was regularly fetching hundreds of dollars a bottle or was flying off the shelf like Malbec is then we'd be hearing all about it from these producers).  Prices for California Charbono seem to be in the $30 - $50 range with the lowest price that I've seen at around $19 (I web-shopped for these as we don't get much Charbono in Massachusetts), while Argentine Bonarda I've seen from as low as $8 a bottle to as high as $25 (I'm sure there are more expensive ones, but I'm just talking about what I've personally seen in shops). The very nearly extinct Charbono is only grown on about 80 acres of land and only in California while Bonarda is the second most grown grape in Argentina.  Which one would you pay more for? 

OK, so enough preaching.  I was able to pick up a bottle of the 2004 Robert Foley Charbono for $40 from my friends over at Curtis Liquors.   In the glass, the wine was an inky, opaque purple nearly all the way out to the rim.  The depth and intensity of color was shocking for a wine that was seven years old.  The nose was very ripe and loaded with cassis, blueberries and ripe purple fruits.  On the palate the wine was fairly full bodied with nice acidity and dusty, grippy tannins.  There were blackcurrant and creme de cassis flavors along with dried blueberries, blueberry jam, smoke, ripe black cherries and blackberries.  It was very dense and layered with gooey fruit flavors but with nice smoky, earthy espresso undertones and an acidity and tannin structure that was able to hold it all together.  This is a massive wine with incredible concentration and fruit flavors that just keep coming.  If I wasn't already convinced by all of the written evidence about Charbono and Argentine Bonarda, the tasting definitely would have converted me.  Both are inky, dense wines with enormous fruit flavors balance by nice acidity and tannins.  If you like the fruit layered on pretty thick, Charbono and Bonarda are definitely wines you should check out.  If you like your wines with a little restraint and finesse, stay away because subtlety and nuance are not what these wines are about.  These are steak wines that I think could stand up to a lot of Bar-b-Que dishes as well.  It has to be something with a lot of flavor because this is going to run over delicate or lightly seasoned foods.

Grenache Blanc - Clarksburg, California, USA

Grenache Blanc is the fourth or fifth most planted white grape in all of France, which might lead someone to scratch their head at its inclusion on a site like this.  Well, I would say to the doubter, go out and try to find a varietally bottled Grenache Blanc.  Yes, the grape is widely grown in France and in Spain to some extent, but it is almost always used in a blend and rarely seen in a varietal bottling.  Further, today's wine isn't from France or Spain, it's from California, which is certainly not a hotbed of Grenache Blanc activity.  In fact, in the 2010 report by the California Food and Agriculture Department, Grenache Blanc is listed as having 266 acres devoted to it in the entire state (Colombard, by contrast, has almost 25,000 acres and king Chardonnay has about 95,000 acres). I generally only ask that a wine meet one of my three criteria for a Fringe Wine and this one hits two (unusual location and unusual style), so here we go.

Grenache Blanc is thought to be native to eastern Spain and it is still grown in Rioja, where it is allowed in the Rioja blend, but is seldom used due to its tendency to oxidize (the Spanish love long barrel aging for their Rioja wines which is an invitation to oxidation for grapes that are especially prone to it).  It is related to Grenache Noir (aka Garnacha Tinta or just plain Grenache, usually),  in the same way that Pinot Noir is related to Pinot Blanc and Pinot Gris (as a skin-color mutation of a clone).  Southern France is where most Grenache Blanc is grown today, with significant plantings in the Rhone Valley (especially Châteauneuf-du-Pape and Languedoc-Rousillon).  It is also grown in southeastern Spain along the Pyrenees.  Tablas Creek is the winery in the US that is responsible for the cultivation of Grenache Blanc as Grenache Blanc here.  They took cuttings from Chateau Beaucastel in Châteauneuf-du-Pape and planted then in 1996 with the first harvest happening in 1999.  From 1999 through 2002, they were only allowed to label their wines as "Grenache," since Grenache Blanc was not yet recognized by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms as a legitimate varietal.  They petitioned in 2002 and won approval in 2003 to label wines made from this grape as Grenache Blanc.  The first varietally labeled wines were released in 2004.

The bottling I was able to pick up was the 2007 Spencer Roloson which  I got for about $24 (on sale).  The grapes for this wine are sourced from the Esperanza vineyard in Clarksburg, CA, in the Sacramento River Delta.  When the vineyard was initially planted, it was planted with red wine production in mind, but apparently a few Grenache Blanc vines ended up with the Grenache Noir cuttings and several acres were accidentally planted with Grenache Blanc.  They rolled with it, and this bottle is the result.  The wine had a lemon yellow color in the glass and a pretty reserved nose with some white peach and pear aromas.  On the palate, the wine was full bodied with medium acidity.  There were flavors of creamy pear, toasted nuts and some vanilla, along with a buttery kind of flavor.  It doesn't seem like this wine sees any new oak (I think it's fermented in stainless steel and then aged in neutral oak), but most of the flavors here are secondary, either from the extended lees contact or possibly a little oxidation.  The wine was good, but it was certainly a little past its prime (four years can be a very long time for grapes prone to oxidation and especially for wines without some new oak influence).  This bottling was similar to an aged California Chardonnay, but in their youth, they should be a bit fresher with more of a floral scent and a dill note.

Symphony - California, USA

Alas and alack. It seems that Symphony is so obscure that I can't find a picture of symphony grapes anywhere online (or ripe grapes in any case...there are a few pictures of some tiny green berries that look like under ripe grapes, but most under ripe grapes all look the same anyway). So instead here's a picture of my dog desperately trying to get my attention.

Once upon a time in California, there was a guy named Harold Olmo who made his living creating new species of grapes either by crossing two vinifera species or by crossing two different vitis species. We've met people much like Olmo here before: Seibel and Landot were both French scientists with many crossings and hybrids to their credit. Olmo was based at UC Davis in California and created many widely used grapes like Ruby Cabernet, Emerald Riesling and Rubired, among others. What he and many other scientists at UC Davis were interested in was creating grapes that could withstand the climates of some of California's less than ideal growing sites. To that end, his work was very successful, as Ruby Cabernet and Rubired are widely used in bulk wine production in areas like California's Central Valley which is far too hot for most wine grape varieties. The problem is that the wine produced from these grapes tends to not be of particularly high quality and lack character.

Symphony is anything but a characterless grape. Dr. Olmo worked for thirty years to perfect this crossing of Muscat of Alexandria and Grenache Gris before he introduced it commercially in 1981. It has not exactly caught fire in California, as there were only about 700 acres (280 ha) under cultivation in California as of 2004 (other states have some plantings as well). The largest plantings of Symphony are owned by the Kautz family who also own Ironstone Vineyards. Their bottling is called "Obsession" and it is 100% Symphony. I picked up a bottle of their 2009 vintage for about $10.

In the glass, the wine is very pale silvery lemon color with a greenish tint. The nose on this is very assertive and very flowery. It is immediately apparent that this grape picked up a lot of the Muscat character from the crossing. There were also some ripe, citrusy grapefruit aromas as well, but flowers is the overpowering message here. On the palate, the wine is light bodied with medium acidity and a little sweet. Their website indicates that there is 1.62% residual sugar here, but it tastes a little sweeter because of the flowery aromas, I think. There are orange blossom and mandarin orange flavors along with some apricot-like stone fruit characteristics and the flavor that Muscat brings to the table that can really only be described as "grapey." The finish is carried by a nice lingering, mouth-watering minerality. On the whole, this is a pleasant, slightly sweet little sipper. The acidity could stand to be a little higher, but it's not a real deal-breaker or anything. The flowery aromas and flavors were too much for my wife and she couldn't make it past a single glass. It's hard to go wrong here with the price, as Muscat-based wines will typically run you at least twice this so if you're on a budget, this is a very good option. I can't see this ever really replacing a nice Moscato d'Asti or an Alsatian Muscat in my cellar but it is certainly an enjoyable drink that I can imagine really hits the spot on a warm summer day.

Valdiguié - California Style

Valdiguié suffered for many years from a case of mistaken identity. For a long time, growers in California were cultivating and selling what they believed to be a clone of the Gamay grape used in Beaujolais under the name "Napa Gamay," or sometimes just plain old "Gamay." In 1980, Pierre Galet, a French ampelographer, determined that what had been called Napa Gamay was actually Valdiguié. Genetic testing later confirmed Galet's diagnosis, though it took the US government another 19 years to ban the Napa Gamay moniker. Valdiguié grapes were still allowed in wines labeled "Gamay Beaujolais" produced in California until 2007. Valdiguié also has a host of synonyms in its home country of France: Valdiguer, Cahors (not to be confused with the region Cahors which makes wine from the Malbec grape), Gros Auxerrois, Jean-Pierrou at Sauzet, Quercy, and Noir de Chartres. Now it seems that Valdiguié, what little of it is produced, is finally flying under its own banner, in California at least.

Valdiguié has never been considered a noble grape variety. It was first commercially propagated in France in 1874, though its history prior to that is unclear. There are three conflicting accounts of Valdiguié's original cultivation all revolving around three different gentlemen with the last name Valdiguié. At one time it was a workhorse grape in Southwest France due to its high yields and resistance to powdery mildew. Overproduction was a problem, though, and the wines were not considered to be very good. Plantings in France have declined precipitously so that there is virtually no Valdiguié left. In 1958 there were over 4000 hectares devoted to Valdiguié, a number which shrunk to fewer than 300 hectares in 1988. I haven't seen any figures more recent than that, but most of what I've read indicates that it has probably dropped below that figure as well with the few lingering patches mostly located in Languedoc and Provence.

Valdiguié made its mark in the United States following the repeal of prohibition. It was popular with growers in the US for the same reasons it was popular with growers in France: high yields and disease resistance. There were over 6000 acres devoted to Valdiguié as late as the 1970s, but total plantings are currently estimated at lower than 1000 acres. Much of what is bottled as Valdiguié in California is vinified the same way that Gamay is vinified in Beaujolais. Carbonic maceration, the technique where whole grape clusters are fermented prior to crushing so that the fermentation happens within the grape skins, is the preferred process, producing wines that very closely mimic Beaujolais wines.

For a grape with such limited plantings, Valdiguié can be surprisingly easy to find. J. Lohr produces a varietal Valdiguié bottling called "Wildflower" which is readily available in many wine shops. They source their grapes from the Arroyo Seco region of Monterey County, California. They actually only use carbonic maceration for about 20% of the crop with the rest vinified in the traditional method in stainless steel tanks. I picked up a bottle of their 2009 offering for around $10. The color was a bright, purply magenta color, though it didn't have a lot of saturation. On the nose there were aromas of cranberry sauce, tart cherries and raspberry jam. The wine was medium bodied, though it felt a little thin on the palate, with medium acidity and very light tannins. "Fresh red fruits" really encapsulates the flavor profile of this wine with light red cherry and cranberry flavors along with some fresh raspberry as well. It's a pretty simple wine, but it's also very enjoyable and easy to drink on its own, though it would be a great match for poultry and light pork dishes as well as some heavier fish. It would be a great wine to serve at Thanksgiving. It is definitely for fans of Beaujolais wines or any soft, fruity, juicy red wines. This is a wine to drink young, as it doesn't really have the structure to endure very much aging.