AdamLechmere: On Saving Ancient Grape Varieties

Interesting article by AdamLechmere on the movement, mostly in France, to preserve ancient grape varieties afore they go extinct:
Preserving Ancient Grape Varieties

Lotta varieties I've not heard of. Obviously, they should be planting these all up&down the Coast of Calif. Calling Bryan Harrington.

A related article by ChristinaPickard on a similar effort in Britan:
Saving British Varieties

Anyway, some interesting reading.
Tom

There's also Georgi Natenadze in Georgia, seeking vines and rebuilding vindyards destryed by the Ottomans in the 1500s, and making minute quantities of wine from some vines in the meantime
https://www.natenadze.company/about-us.html

The subject as a whole is fascinating. And these articles cover a huge span of centuries, and reasons why vines and vineyards became ignored. The sceptic in me asks many questions. For example, is how ancient really is a variety, just because the French chose not to replant it after phylloxera? And if one old vine is found in a garden, is it really what we would call a variety today? Or is it "just" a natural crossing that happened to produce useful grapes in one location? To these questions, I think the answer is "nobody knows", and without a considerable amount if research nobody will. There is, after all, a heck of a lot we still don't know about minor grapes that presumably have been in constant use through the last few centuries.

I'm a sucker for old varieties.


Adam Lechmere's article on Plaimont rescuing old varieties mentioned Manseng Noir.

The Wine Society had a bottling of Plaimont's 100% Manseng Noir (now sold out) of which I have one bottle left and for some vintages they have been sellingPlaimont's Moonseng which is a Merlot-Manseng Noir blend.

When Champagne drew up its Appellation laws in the 1930's they decided to select the most productive grape varieties in the area, which was Pinot Meunier (more than half the plantings but never talked about until recently), Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. The others weren't exactly banned but no new plantings could be done of them unless as a replacement. There are a very few Champagne houses that make wines from the old varieties. I've had a 100% Arbanne Champagne and it's terrific - ethereal, and I've had blends of 6 allowed varieties, the 3 usual plus Arbanne, Pinot Blanc and Petit Meslier.

ARBANE.gif

Georgia also has a government-sponsored wine research station just outside Tbilisi that works with forgotten varieties.

I applaud the efforts of producers like Plaimont to revive forgotten grape varieties which once prospered in their region. As the article points out there is a lot of activity of this kind in Savoie and recently RVF reviewed some of the resulting wine. Regrettably I didn't have time or space in the car to pick up any bottles when passing through the region to and from Rome last week.

I have however had the opportunity to drink Manseng Noir and liked it as this link shows viewtopic.php?f=3&t=63174&hilit=manseng+noir .

I guess that Spain, Italy and Portugal are all potential hunting grounds for forgotten ancestral varieties; some of them may be able to cope with the warming climate. It would be nice to see a roll back of CabSauv, Merlot, Syrah, Chardonnay......in their favour.

I guess that Spain, Italy and Portugal are all potential hunting grounds for forgotten ancestral varieties; some of them may be able to cope with the warming climate. It would be nice to see a roll back of CabSauv, Merlot, Syrah, Chardonnay......in their favour.

Hear hear!!

They told us at Quinta de Crasto in Douro that in one of their old vineyards there are more than 45 varieties, and they didn't know hat many of them were...

BTW - the Manseng Noir sold by The Wine Society was 2019, the vintage after the one you had.

Peter, Laherte and a couple others make bottlings with all seven- Arbane, Chardonnay, Petit Meslier, Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier. Laherte also has an all Meslier bottling, but I've never had it.,