Winemakers from Europe to Australia and China seek best climate change grapes
- Winemakers around the world are planting or reviving little-known, sometimes nearly extinct grape varieties, which may fare better as the planet heats up
- Counoise, vaccarèse, mencía, picpoul blanc and cabernet Pfeffer could become more familiar than the likes of chardonnay, pinot noir and sauvignon blanc
Last year you may have tasted your way through any number of well-known wine grape varieties, whether cabernet sauvignon, chardonnay, pinot noir or sauvignon blanc.
In the future, however, are the drinking delights of less familiar names: counoise, vaccarèse, mencía, picpoul blanc and cabernet Pfeffer.
Winemakers from California, Texas, Europe and South America are planting or reviving these little-known, sometimes nearly extinct varieties.
Take counoise, for example, one of the 13 varieties permitted in Châteauneuf-du-Pape blends in France’s Rhône Valley. Growers abandoned it because the grapes only mature late in a growing season, so in cooler years they did not fully ripen. And they are susceptible to various diseases including gray rot.
The first California producer to plant it was Paso Robles winery Tablas Creek, founded in 1989 by the American Haas family, and the French Perrin family, owners of Château de Beaucastel in the Rhône Valley.
“Our original long-term goal was always to invest in all the grapes grown in the Rhône, including those that had practically disappeared,” said Jason Haas, the second-generation proprietor of Tablas Creek. “Now we see that all the higher-acid varieties are going to be increasingly useful as the climate warms.”
Haas bottles versions of 20 different varieties, which are all sold out. He says counoise, picpoul, grenache blanc and vaccarèse are the most likely to be great on their own. Grenache blanc has already been a success story, becoming the second-most planted white Rhône grape in California, after viognier, used in the blend for Tablas Creek’s Cotes de Tablas Blanc.
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The Rhône Valley is just one of the many European wine regions getting even warmer. The threat of climate change is pushing new interest in unusual, abandoned grapes as well in Italy, Portugal and Spain, among others, and is inspiring winemakers in the new world to grow them.
After the winery bought a 10-acre ancient apple orchard, he discovered mencía vines had just been approved for release in California. “It’s a tough, late-ripening variety, drought-resistant,” Smith said. “The perfect grape for climate change.”
He first planted it in 2016, picks it a month later than pinot noir and is planting more. “The heat didn’t affect the grapes at all,” Smith said. Mencía also appeals to wine lovers looking for something new. The first vintage of Smith’s purple-fruited, floral-scented red – in 2018 – was snapped up by the winery’s club in 48 hours. Now he is mulling over the ancient Italian grape timorasso.
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Dozens of rare grapes are having a moment, and there is hot competition in California for those discovered in old vineyards, like cabernet Pfeffer. California’s Lodi region, a hotbed of experimentation, boasts 125 grape varieties.
But the trend goes far beyond the US and Europe to China and Australia, where grower Bruce Bassham found that the Portuguese grape arinto thrives even in temperatures of almost 120F.
And some winemakers just cannot resist the challenge of the unknown. As Matthew Rorick of Napa’s Forlorn Hope in California puts it: “We love the long shots. We love the outsiders, the lost causes.”
