Whenever I go to a wine store, I ask to be introduced to rare wine grapes. Today, I did a Google search and found three articles on rare wine grapes: Cellar Tours The Ten Rarest Wine Grape Varieties, Wine Folly’s Six Rare Red Wine Grapes You Deserve to Know About and The Gray Report’s Tasting the World’s Rarest Wine Grape. Let’s explore some of these little-known grapes.
Cellar Tours’ Ten Rare Wine Grapes
Here are the 10 grapes Cellar Tours talks about. With the exception of Brachetto, I don’t know any of these. Do you?
- Assyrtiko – Grown on the Greek island of Santorini, Wines of Greece tells us that “Assyrtiko is made for people looking for unconventional, intense styles of whites, that lean towards texture and density. It offers sensations that are well away from the average, ‘commercially appealing’ dry white. Very food friendly, especially with grilled fish and seafood.”
- Brachetto – “Brachetto is probably Italy’s least well-known grape, grown in the northern Italian region of Piedmont. It produces an aromatic, light red wine unusually low in alcohol, often no more than 5.5%.”
- Caberlot – a genetic cross between Merlot and Cabernet Franc. There are only 2 hectares of this variety grown today, one one estate in Tuscany.
- Furmint – “Furmint is the main component of Hungary’s Tokaji wine. Named after the town of Tokaji at the foot of the Tatra mountains in Hungary, it is the oldest known variety to be subjected to the botrytis noble rot, dating from the mid-1600s.”
- Mavrud – “A Balkan grape, which is rarely seen today, Mavrud comes from Assnovgrad in Bulgaria. It is notoriously difficult to grow and ripen, producing rustic wines from unripe fruit in bad years. It can offer robust, potent wines with a dry, peppery Grenache-style scent and flavor in better years.”
- Ortega – “A very sparely planted variety in Germany has found a home in the vineyards of Kent, England.”
- Rotgipfler – “Rotgipfler must surely win the prize for the least-seen varietal wine. This white grape is indigenous to the Thermenregion in Austria and is sometimes compared to Viognier, although its parents are Traminer and Roter Veltliner.”
- Txakoli – “The pride and joy of the Basque country in Northern Spain, this variety is the ideal aperitif for those who are driving. It produces a very dry white wine with bracing acidity and low alcohol content.”
- Tyrian – “One of the newest grape varieties to come into existence was genetically ‘bred’ by an Australian company. One winery – McWilliams Wines in Australia – grows the variety, a hybrid of Cabernet Sauvignon and the Spanish variety Sumoll. Tyrian ripens extremely late, offering notes of plum and violets with a deep color and bright hue.”
- Welschriesling – “This variety…has nothing to do with Germany’s Riesling grape. It is mainly planted in Austria, producing light, floral, delicate wines with a forceful acidity.”
Wow, would I like to try some of these wines.
Wine Folly’s Rare Wine Grapes
With the exception of Frappato, I haven’t tried any of these:
- Refosco – Refosco is a family of grapes. “One Italian variant called ‘Refosco dal Penduncolo Rosso’…turns out to be the parent of Corvina, which makes one of the top wines of Italy (that’s Amarone della Valpoicella).” The wine is known to be rich with high acidity.
- Frappato – This “is one of the few red wines out there that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Still, its sweet-smelling fruit flavors and pale red color aren’t something to poo poo. Frappato might actually be genetically related to Sangiovese (Italy’s top red wine…). Plus, it’s perfectly at home growing on a live volcano (Mount Etna in Sicily)!”
- St. Laurent – From Eastern Europe, this grape is “like a bolder, sexier, more bodacious Pinot Noir (although, it’s technically not related).”
- Listán Negro – This grape from the Canary Islands is “compared to Grenache, but with slightly less smack-you-in-the-face alcohol.”
- Baga – “It’s cheap rosé when done wrong, but it’s Portugal’s Amarone when done right.”
The Gray Report Grapes
The Gray Report introduces what they call the world’s rarest wine grape. The story reads like this: “I tasted wine made from a northern Italian grape that is even more rare than a grape called ‘almost extinct’ in José Vouillamoz’s definitive tome Wine Grapes. Ian D’Agata, author of Native Wine Grapes of Italy, said, ‘This wine didn’t exist. It still doesn’t exist.’ But we tasted it.” Hmmm.
The grape they’re referring to is called Roussin de Morgex. It grows in Valle d’Aosta, extreme northwestern Italy at the Swiss border, a region known for white wines. The region claims that nobody had made wine from it in 300 years.
“They didn’t, however, eradicate every remaining vine of it like smallpox. Grapevines, even fancy ones like Cabernet and Pinot, are essentially weeds. Left alone they will find a place to grow…D’Agata persuaded the technical director of the co-op Cave Mont Blanc to ask its 60 grower-members to look for pink-berry vines on their property; they found a few. D’Agata persuaded growers who found the grapevines to harvest it and vinify it. You think a 50-case Pinot is rare? These wines, from single vines, were made in lots measured not in barrels, but in bottles.”
The first wines made tasted very bad. But then they made a sparkling wine, which was good. If all goes well, we might be able to try it. Who knows.
If you’ve tried any of these rare wine grapes, please share your experience with us. Thanks.
