News

Reprint from The International Herald Tribune

November 13, 2005

Unusual Varietals for the Wine Cellar

By Holly Hubbard Preston

For richest and best
Is the wine of the West,
That grows by the Beautiful River,
Whose sweet perfume
Fills all the room
With a benison on the giver.

By Henry Wordsworth Longfellow, "Ode to Catawba Wine"

In the 1850s, a sparkling pink wine made from the catawba grape – grown on the slopes of the Miami River in Cincinnati – was the toast of the literati. Poets from Longfellow to Robert Browning sang the praises of the fizzy, sweet wine, putting it on a par with French Champagne.

Once in a great while, unusual varietals will come along that capture the imagination of wine enthusiasts, even sophisticated ones. According to Paul Lukacs, author of "American Vintage," published in 2000, Sparkling Pink Catawba was "the first really successful commercially produced American wine. "While contemporary wine enthusiasts "wouldn’t like it," the wine according to Lukacs, "fit into the style and fashion of its day."

There are dozens of unusual or lesser-known varietals that could come into vogue in the next 5 to 10 years. Whether or not they will be a passing fancy, as was the case with Sparkling Pink Catawba, which fizzled by the 1870s, or become something more permanent is a big question.

Be prepared to read about Spanish tempranillos and Argentine malbec, along with South African pinotage and Canadian vidal blanc, maybe even Japanese koshu and a Burmese version of German dornfelder. All these varietals and many more are being bottled for mainstream consumption.

The fact is that wine consumers are going to be hearing more and more about offbeat varietals. The market for classic varietals is saturated, according to Liz Thach, co-author of the new book, "Wine: A Global Business."

With literally hundreds of thousands of labels, producers around the globe are feeling intense pressure to carve a niche for themselves.

Identifying the "keepers" in the bunch isn’t going to be easy. According to "The Wine Bible," Karen MacNeil’s massive compendium on all things wine, there are some 24,000 differently named wine varieties in the world. Of that number, only about 5,000 represent distinctly different grape varieties.

Most of what is consumed, according to MacNeil’s’ best-selling book, published in 2001, comes from 150 varieties, only nine of which are considered classic: chardonnay, chenin blanc, Riesling, sauvignon blanc and semillon among whites; cabernet sauvignon, merlot, pinot noir and syrah for reds.

According to MacNeil, varietals with the potential to cross over in the "classic" category must have two things going for them: sign that they are being planted in different places around the globe and indications of growing consumer demand for them.

Based on those criteria, MacNeil singled out a handful of varietals that collectors interested in diversifying may want to acquire on a limited bases" tempranillo, garnacha (know as grenache in France, North America and Australia), malbec, neibbiolo, zinfandel and syrah (known as shiraz in Australia.)