Pinot Gris

Pinot gris (or pinot grigio, as it is known in Italy) probably is the best-known "white" variant-clone of Pinot Noir. Ripe pinot gris grapes may be described as having colors from bluish grey to light pinkish brown. Clusters with a variety of colors are not unusual.

The variety can attain a very high level of sweetness, but will begin to lose acid rapidly when near to fully ripe. Sometimes it is used to add richness and to lighten, when blended with Pinot Noir.

Some pinot gris is grown in Burgundy, where it may be called pinot beurot. Where planted in Germany, it is known as ruländer. It is of little commercial significance in either locale. Friuli, in Italy, produces the largest quantity, but only two appellations have Pinot Gris stars in the wine quality galaxy: Alsace, France, the traditional base of Pinot Gris appreciation and Oregon, the newest Pinot Gris area to come to light.

In Alsace, the pinot gris grape is called tokay d'Alsace (no relation to the Hungarian Tokay). The Alsatians value it as a full-bodied wine that can stand up to food without introducing any flavors of its own. In Italy, Pinot Grigio can be quite distinguished, coming from some producers, especially in the Friuli region, who devote attention to growing and vinifying. Unfortunately for its reputation, there are many other Italian Pinot Grigio makers that overcrop and harvest early to produce crisp, but vapid wines.

There are winemakers in the United States who are putting serious efforts into growing and producing Pinot Gris. Nearly 1,620 acres are planted in California, mostly in the Central and South coastal areas. Both quality and sales have been erratic thus far. Many Oregon wineries, on the other hand, have had good success and are moving steadily away from making Chardonnay while increasing production of Pinot Gris. In the 2000 vintage, Pinot Gris total plantings (1270 acres) and quantity crushed (2917 tons) surpassed Chardonnay (1125 acres, 2523 tons) for the first time.

Pinot Gris / Pinot Grigio is usually delicately fragrant and mildly floral with lightly lemon-citrus flavors. Depending upon ripeness at harvest and vinification technique, Pinot Gris can be tangy and light, or quite rich, round and full bodied. Made in an appropriate style, it is one dry white wine that may even age well.

Muscadelle

Not to be confused with the Muscat grape, Muscadelle is an increasingly unimportant grape that calls Bordeaux home. Part of the blend used for both dry white Bordeaux and the sweet wines of Sauternes et al., Muscadelle has now taken a back seat to Sémillon and Sauvignon Blanc. In fact, most of the Muscadelle plantings today are in the outlying area of Entre-Deux-Mers instead of the more prestigious Graves or Sauternes. Also found in the Dordogne area of the Gaillac region further to the south where it is capable of producing light and aromatic wines with notes of flowers, peaches and honey.

Muscadelle is most famous today for the outstanding dessert wines known as stickies that come from southern Australia and the Rutherglen in Victoria. These wines are often referred to as Tokay as the Muscadelle in Australia was thought for years to be the Hárslevelu varietal that is a big part of the Hungarian dessert wine Tokaji.

Marsanne

This grape is relatively new to the "varietal scene", as one of the white wine grapes that is helping, along with Viognier and Roussanne, to increase the visibility and popularity of "Rhône-style" wines in California in particular and the United States in general.

Its probable origin is the northern Rhône region and it is one of eight white grape varieties allowed in the Côtes du Rhône appellation. Offering greater productivity and intriguingly different aromas, it has gradually taken oven the role of blending that traditionally was held in many Rhône appellations by Roussanne. Besides fairly recent and limited plantings in California, Australia has less than 250 acres of vineyards planted to Marsanne, although some date back a century or more.

While the vines are relatively hardy, the grapes hangs in winged, long, well-filled, and compact clusters. This leaves the fruit susceptible to powdery mildew (odium), bunch rot, berry cracking and excessive juicing at harvest. Marsanne grapes tend to be low in acidity, so both must and wine have tendencies to oxidation and browning. This grape's varietal character has little tolerance for weather that is either too cool or too warm and bland, simply vinous wine will result.

The round, medium-gold to amber Marsanne berries make deep-colored wine that is also fairly full-bodied, sometimes described as almost "waxy". Where growing conditions are right, Marsanne aromas can suggest almond paste or citrus, mixed with perfume or model airplane cement. Low aciditiy means Marsanne wine is best consumed young.

Gruner Veltliner

Grüner Veltliner, or Gru-Vee, as it has been dubbed, is the latest craze. It’s Austria’s own white variety: although lots of attention has focused on Austrian Riesling, there’s actually an awful lot more Gru-Vee planted (by a factor of 10). Now it’s rightfully regarded as the centrepiece of Austria’s wine industry. If you want to look cool this summer, then you should really be sipping Gru-Vee.

So if Austrian whites, and Grüner Veltliners in particular, are so good, how come we haven’t seen many of them here in the UK? The main reason they’ve not been better known abroad is because the domestic market greedily snaps up most of the good stuff, and keeps the prices high across the board. Indeed, Austria doesn’t actually make that much wine. But the word is out, and Grüner Veltliner is gaining more of the attention that it deserves. With its food friendliness, versatility and in many cases a capacity to gain complexity with age, Grüner looks set to gain more friends.

Much of the hype surrounding Grüner Veltliner comes from a series of blind tastings (there have been three so far) put on by a Swiss aficionado of Austrian wines, of which the best publicized was held in the UK at the invitation of MWs Jancis Robinson and Tim Atkin. In this shoot-out, Austria’s leading Grüner Veltliners and Chardonnays were pitched against top Chardonnays from around the world, including some very, very stylish white Burgundies. Remarkably, the panel of illustrious judges voted the Austrian wines into seven of the top 10 places. Grüner Veltliner was the clear winner.

Grüner has a variety of expressions. Cropped at high yields it can make a pleasant but light quaffing white, but if growers take a little more care it is capable of making complex, full flavoured, spicy whites often with a distinctive white flower and cracked pepper edge to them. The examples that I tried below (at a tasting put on by the Austrian wine marketing board) aren’t necessarily the best; they represent a spectrum of styles, and many of the most famous names are missing. However, the quality was consistently good across the board. Only a couple of these wines have seen new oak: generally, Gru-Vee doesn’t need new oak to enhance its character, and if barriques are used they have to be used with care.

Garganega

An ancient vine which is nearly identical to Sicily’s Grecanico, Garganega is thought to be of early Greek origin, as the name suggests. It has been established in northeast Italy for centuries and is widely planted throughout the Veneto, where it is the primary white vine and the staple ingredient of Soave. Cultivated to lesser extent in Friuli, Lombardy and Umbria, it shows up almost nowhere else.

Garganega is a late-ripening and extremely vigorous vine, with medium sized, pentagonal leaves with pronounced notches. The loosely-knit clusters are long, cylindrical and winged, supporting spherical, thick skinned, juicy berries of moderate acidity, medium in size and pale white-green in color.

Responsible for oceans of bland, undistinguished wine, when sited in the best microclimates and cultivated to restrict yield it can produce an elegant, delicate wine reminiscent of greengage plums, citrus and almonds, with balance, structure and texture.

Garganega is also produced in a recioto version, during which the finest parts of the bunches are dried on mats until winter, and the resulting semi-raisins slowly fermented to yield a seductive, sweet dessert wine that can age for decades.

Zinfandel

Zinfandel was for many years somewhat of a mystery grape, as far as its origins are concerned. Recent research in Croatia and at the University of California at Davis, using DNA profiling, has proved Zinfandel is a clone of the Croatian variety Crljenak. While it had been theorized that Zinfandel's genetic twin, the Italian Primitivo, was the source, this grape also originally mutated from Crljenak. Further research may indicate the very first plantings migrated from Albania or Greece.

In April, 2002, the TTB announced they are considering ruling Zinfandel and Primitivo synonymous for use on wine labels. Producers of California Zinfandel will probably object, anticipating that Italian producers with a bountiful supply would then be able to undercut the market with inexpensive Primitivo wine labeled "Zinfandel".

Zinfandel came to the United States in 1820, when New York nurseryman George Gibbs carried back various cuttings from the Imperial Austrian plant species collection. Over the next two decades, Zinfandel became a popular table grape in the Northeast U.S. Although there are some commercial claims that Agoston Harazsthy brought Zinfandel to California, records show that a Massachusetts nurseryman introduced it here. In either case, Zinfandel is now considered indigenous to California, where it has thrived since the mid-1850's.

Nearly as versatile as Chardonnay in the number of different styles of wine produced from it, it has only achieved widespread popularity in America since 1980, as a pink, slightly sweet wine. In fact, this popularity has so outstripped all other forms, that many fans think that there is actually a grape called "White Zinfandel" (there isn't)!

Zinfandel as a red wine can be made light and fruity, much like French Beaujolais, or lively, complex and age worthy, like Cabernet or claret. It can also be made into big, ripe, high alcohol style wines that resemble Port. Zinfandel is also a component of most California "jug" wines, since it is the most widely planted red wine grape.

This vineyard proliferation can be attributed to zinfandel's hardy nature. Adaptable to a wide range of soils and climates, its vines tend to be vigorous and productive. Zinfandel also has a frequent tendency to set a second crop.

The clusters are compact and full and the berry stems (peduncles) somewhat short. These factors make Zinfandel somewhat susceptible to bunch rot and some types of mildew. Water management is particularly critical to raising Zinfandel. Under stress from lack of moisture, it is prone to raisining. It also ripens more unevenly than most other varieties and it is not uncommon for green and raisined berries to occur within the same cluster. This tendency to can be aggravated by poorly-timed irrigation. Uneven ripening also means that machine-picking is impractical and a Zinfandel vineyard may often require a few passes, days apart, to harvest all the fruit with the same level of maturity.

Because of its vigor, generosity and resistance to vine disease, many zinfandel vineyards exist that are 75 to 100 or more years old. Zinfandel aficionados believe these "old vines" produce the best wines, because the older vineyards set smaller crops and the grapes tend to ripen more evenly.

At its best, Zinfandel (red) has a very fruity, raspberry-like aroma and flavor and a "jammy" quality. The most common aroma and flavor descriptors used with Zinfandel are: >>>

Zinfandel is one red varietal that is probably best enjoyed in its youth, within three to five years of the vintage. With more bottle age than this, the luscious fruit that distinguishes Zinfandel drops markedly and the wine can show a pronounced "hot" taste of higher alcohol levels and become more neutrally vinous. It is sometimes hard even for experienced tasters to pick an older Zinfandel from among similar-aged Cabernet Sauvignon, for instance (not that there's anything wrong with that).

When paired with outdoor-grilled steaks or chops or meat that has been stewed with or stuffed with fruit, Zinfandel becomes a prime motivation for people to become wine-lovers.

Tempranillo

Tempranillo is a primary red wine grape for much of Spain, especially those from the Ribera del Duero and the Rioja Alta. It is also a key blending varietal in Port and known by the name of tinta roriz in Portugal's Douro Valley.

While its varietal character is somewhat vague, its aromas and flavors often combine elements of berryish fruit, herbaceousness, and an earthy-leathery minerality. Rarely bottled as a stand-alone varietal, its most frequent blendmates are grenache, (aka garnacha in Spain), carignan (aka mazuelo in Spain) and, more recently, cabernet sauvignon.