Just announced. New grapes for Bordeaux!

The hottest most unexpected news has just come out of Bordeaux of all places. 

Bordeaux you would have thought is a well established wine producing area if ever there was one. Over centuries of large scale production for an international market, Bordeaux styles, regions vineyards and not least grape varieties have evolved. 

 

 

The classification of 1855 seemed to have set all this in stone.

You would have thought there was no need to fix anything in Bordeaux as nothing appeared to be broke. 

Certainly Bordeaux has changed not exactly out of all recognition but substantially over the last 50 years - and a lot for the good. Dry white wine is the obvious example. Your Semillon Sauvignon and sometimes Muscadelle is now making word class wine. Whole satellite regions are no longer a byword for poor mean plonk. Even Bordeaux Superieur and even plain Bordeaux can be excellent.

On the negative side the inexorable march of the abv results in wines which are almost new world in their concentration and extraction.

Perhaps it is this that has prompted the  wine producers' syndicate to vote unanimously to think again about permissible grapes and make 7 choices. It still needs to be approved by France's national oversight body, INAO.  Just to recap, the varieties currently authorized include

Carmenere

Cabernet Franc

Cabernet Sauvignon

Malbec

Medoc Blanc (no longer cultivated)

Merlot

Petit Verdot

Saint Macaire

and for the whites

Colombard

Folle Blanche

Muscadelle

Sauvignon Blanc

Sauvignon Gris

Semillon

Ugni blanc

When you consider Burgundy, this is not a bad palette of choice and the various Bordeaux areas take advantage of whatever is best for them, 

And yet it has been announced out of the blue that several further grape varieties are to be permitted under certain circumstances and some of them are not even native French varieties:

 

White

Liliorila

Petit Manseng

 

Red

 

Alvarinho

Arinarnoa

Castets 

Marselan

Touriga Nacional

 

We welcome these varieties even if they are not permitted for the moment to cover more than 5% of the vineyard or form more than 10% of any blend. Bordeaux has shown surprising forward-looking flexibility. We think there is no doubt others will follow.

Apparently the impetus to the initiative has been global warming. There may even be further additions to these new grapes.

If crossings such as Arinarnoa (Cabernet Sauvignon and Tannat) and Marselan (Cabernet Sauvigon and Grenache) are allowed, why not resistant hybrids such as those being developed by the Vivai Cooperativo di Rauscedo, the worlds' largest and most important vine nursery? It is the VCR's intention to produce resistant versions of all the great grape varieties and they have made a good start on this.

 

What else might be considered?

In a previous post we wrote about an estate in the Graves called Liber Pater. There a gentleman called Loïc Pasquet is attempting to re-create a pre-phylloxera vineyard. to that end he has planted an eclectic variety of grapes:

Camaralet (a white grape associated with several areas in SW France but not Bordeaux)
Lauzet (a white grape from Jurancon) Mancin (aka Tarnay Coulant - a red grape formerly quite widespread in the Gironde including Bordeaux but now down to less than 1 ha.) Pardotte (red grape considered productive but giving an ordinary wine low in alcohol and flat. Unclassified, there were 183 ha. in 1958 in many Bordeaux sub-zones, a few in 1988 and in 2011, none.)  Prunelard (a red grape nursed back to life by the Plageolles family in Gaillac) . Although parent of Cot (aka Malbec or Pressac in Bordeaux) it is not a Bordeaux grape.

 

 

 

And our own personal suggestions? 

Sauvignonasse aka Tocai Friulano or Friulano. Surprisingly this originated in Bordeaux but has never been much cultivated there. If you want a resistant version of Friulano, VCR have two varieties, Fleurtai and Soreli.

 

The huge Adega Regional was built following the time when Colares stood in for Bordeaux during the Phylloxera epidemic.

Ramisco. OK, we are obsessed with Ramisco. Why? Because it grows in sand over clay and therefore was never affected by Phylloxera, it produces age-worthy wines, is planted by the sea - the same Atlantic Ocean that abuts Bordeaux and makes low alcohol wines, typically 11% or 12% (although admittedly this has been creeping up) and is perhaps the most 'Bordelais' of all Portuguese wine. There is also an interesting historical connection with Bordeaux. During the Phylloxera blight, the wines of Colares went some way to step in to supply the Bordeaux market being one of the few places still producing wine. It became known as the Bordeaux of Portugal.