I had and thoroughly enjoyed a pale ale made with experimental hops this evening, and noticed that it’s common for breweries to make beers with various experimental hops, usually through state university development programs. It got me thinking - and I realized I’ve never seen a wine made from experimental cultivars. With the threat of climate change looming over the industry, surely there must be state and university programs that are making out-there hybrids and experimental clones that are more resilient to climate change, or simply in pursuit of new flavors and textures? The craft beer market is nearly as large as the wine market in the US - is innovation stagnant in the latter, or is it just not publicly known?
Looking for recommendations on where to try wines made from experimental cultivars (not experimental techniques on popular cultivars).
My guess is that cultivating useful new hop varieties is a much more simple process than cultivating new grapes varieties. Hops do two things in beer - they are either there for bittering or for aroma, and make up a small percentage of the ingredients in beer, a long long way behind water and whatever malted grain base you are using. Arguably yeast can have as much impact, if not more on how a beer tastes than the hops.
Grapes on the other hand, add almost everything to a wine - the fermentable sugars, acidity, tannins (where appropriate), and the overall general flavour profile. Yeast and the form of aging have an effect here too.
Now, having said that, there are plenty of grapes varieties that have descended from other varieties, have mutated to become their own thing or have been intentionally crossed to produce a new grape variety. An obvious one is the grape I know as Durif, but most of the US rightly or wrongly calls Petite Syrah. That was created in the late 1800s so it is hardly a modern example.
In Australia I know the CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) has produced a number of grapes over the years that are used to some extent in the industry https://www.csiro.au/en/Research/Farming-food/Growing-robust-crops/Alternate-grape-varieties
The thing is, they aren’t really very good. Some have been around for quite a while now, but Winemakers aren’t clambering to use them. I don’t think the time and effort was worth the cost of development.
There are an awful lot of grape varieties out there that perform in a range of different climates and conditions. It is much easier to get hold of one of them - where there is already knowledge that the grapes can make good wine and give them a go. That is certainly happening in Australia, and I’m sure it is in the US too.
The only recent work (20-30 years) that I am aware of was to produce hybrids that are more cold hardy. Frontenac and Marquette are the ones that I recall but the Minnesota grape growers association lists a few That I was unaware existed.
BTW, most states have one or bot of a grape growers association or a university fruit/viticulture expert that often shares information on suitable grapes for the area and often do manage their own test Vineyards.
With literally thousands of grape varieties that exist already and then multiple clones on top of that, I don’t know that there is a great need to develop more. Some existing varieties have made comebacks given more attention and using better farming, trellising, and often better locations. This seems to be the more likely approach than new varieties.
When Dennis Horton started Horton Vineyards in Virginia he planted a lot of different things trying to find what would work best in that climate. Most didn’t fare well but he also found some that did quite well. But few are willing to devote the cost and years required for this type of effort. I remember talking to Dennis about Nebbiolo and he told me he planted it and then ripped it out because it was working. Upon a subsequent visit a few years later I found that he had planted new Nebbiolo with different trellises.
Adam Tolmach as planted two new cultivars resistant to Pierce’s disease and made the wines. I posted TN’s on those two wines last Fall. Search should catch them.
Tom
UD Davis has been working on experimental cultivars for over 100 years. Their recent work, as Tom mentioned above, has been to develop cultivars that are resistant to specific diseases, with Pierces Disease being a major push over the past decade. They have made these new cultivars available to nurseries, and I just read that the first commercial purchases have taken place in the past few months.
There will probably be limited ‘exposure’ to many of these varieties because they will be planted in areas to allow for grape production where it is now difficult to achieve - and therefore will not be ‘searched for’ by most.
I think more exciting are the things Bryan Harrington and others have done with getting cuttings of ‘rarer’ varieties around the world and planting them here, giving some exposure to them. Hopefully this continues . . .
Geoff - there’s a lot of work being done. As Larry said, there’s work at Davis and there’s also a lot of work being done in Europe. In addition there’s a lot of collecting going on - Torres is collecting unknown cultivars from anyone in Spain who has something growing that is of unknown origin. So far they’ve come up with many dozens of hitherto ‘unknown’ grapes. They may be field hybrids or things that were just abandoned.
But you’re unlikely to find any on nearby shelves for several reasons. First, to make wine in any quantity at all, you need a number of vines. So you need to plant a few rows of the grapes. Then you need to harvest and vinify. If it’s an unknown or a new cultivar, you don’t have any idea what to do so you try a few things. You have to figure out the optimum picking time, handling, fermentation temperature, etc.
And then when you get some kind of product that you feel is marketable, you have to market it.
“Serious” wine lovers will only drink Pinot Noir. “Semi-serious” wine lovers will only drink Cab. White wine drinkers will only drink Chardonnay. Serious white wine lovers will only drink Riesling or Chardonnay. And Americans will also drink Zinfandel and Merlot and Sauvignon Blanc.
In Europe you’ll need special dispensation to make “experimental” wines because your grapes won’t be covered by any regulatory agency. So nobody will know how much of Grape X you’ll be allowed to put into your Brunello.
So once you make a wine, your marketing is going to be a bitch since all the best grapes are already invented.
The market will be a few lonely adventurous souls like you!