Rare Wine Varietals

​One aspect of the Southern California wine scene that I’ve observed is the large number of different varietal wines produced.  The numbers are quite significant.  I’ve visited most of the wineries in the area and reviewed about 50.  Just in those fifty wineries I’ve tasted 60 different wine varietals.  That’s not 60 grape varieties, but 60 wines made predominately from one grape variety.  (A complete list of the wines can be found in the Wineries section of this website).  About a third are wines that you probably have never heard of before, and are unlikely to find anywhere else in the U.S.  These rare varieties come mostly from Italy.  Well, most.  Turns out yesterday I dropped in on Chuparosa Winery in Ramona and was introduced to a new rare grape variety, Grenache Gris.  This white grape is a mutation of the red Grenache grape and comes from Spain.
Of course, some of these are rare because no one really cares about them, i.e., they really don’t make a good wine.  But for some there are other reasons, such as it is really a pain in the ass to grow the grapes.  High on this list is Lagrein.  An Italian red grape found mostly in northeastern Italy (though its origin may be in northwestern Italy), it yields a dark, full-bodied wine with moderate to high tannin levels, dark fruit and herbal nose, and a generally smooth feel.  The grape growth problem is that the yields are very inconsistent, not to mention it likes high altitudes.  Two wineries in Southern California make this varietal:  Orfila Vineyards and Winery in Escondido and Robert Renzoni Vineyards in Temecula.  I prefer the Orfila version.  The Orfila grapes are grown in San Luis Obispo County, so naturally I had to see what wineries up there had to offer at a winery in Paso Robles.  It was pretty bad.  I also tasted a version in a restaurant in Rome.  Well, bottom line the Orfila and Italian versions were pretty much the same – really, really nice wines – and, yes, I put my money where my mouth is, having bought (and mostly drunk) cases of this wine.

​The Arneis story is not a lot different.  Arneis is a white grape grown in the Piedmont region of Italy.  For many, many years the grape was grown in the same fields as Nebbiolo grapes, and blended with that grape for the most famous (and best, in my opinion) Italian wine Barolo.  Then the Barolo lords decided that the wine had to be made from only Nebbiolo grapes and the poor Arneis grape was abandoned, becoming nearly extinct.  Fortunately, some obviously wonderful person discovered that the grape makes a damn good varietal wine – low to medium acidity, tasting of ripe pear, crisp but quite smooth, along the line of Chenin Blanc or Viognier.  I should add, however, that the name Arneis is Piedmontese for “little rascal”, i.e., it’s like Lagrein – hard to grow.
Strangely enough, I did not realize that this was a particularly rare wine because I found it in no less than four Temecula wineries:  Ponte Winery, Bottaia Winery, Europa Village Wineries and Resort, and Cougar Vineyard and Winery.  I am not the best judge of white wines, so you can take this with a grain of salt, but I find Arneis to be an absolutely wonderful wine.
​Another rare northern Italian varietal that made its way to Southern California is Refosco.  According to the web, the name refers to several grape varieties originating in Italy, Croatia, and Slovenia.  Whatever.  Kohill Winery in Ramona chose to grow this particular red grape variety, perhaps because this wine should do well in our environment.  It is a late ripening grape with high acidity.  If picked too early, it makes for a really bad wine.  Given that we have a very long growing season this should never be a problem, and the acidity issue may also be controlled by our high summer heat.  This dark red wine should have plum and black pepper flavors.  I’ve only tasted this wine once, and then it was a version not quite ready for release, so I cannot comment on the quality of the local version.  Kohill has pretty much shut down, so I can’t say if this wine is currently available.
Our climate may also be a reason for the success of yet another Italian red grape variety, Sagrantino.  Coming from the Umberto region of Italy, it handles high heat quite nicely.  While the red wine from this grape has one of the highest tannin levels of any wine, the tannins are not too harsh so the wine is quite nice without extensive aging, but it is supposed to age extremely well.  The first winery to offer this varietal was Poppaea Vineyard in Ramona; indeed, it is the winery’s core product.  Two other wineries have jumped on the Sagrantino band wagon:  Principe di Tricase Winery in Ramona, and Cougar.  The wine flavors run from black cherries to ripe blackberries.  It is really a nice wine if you are into full-bodied red wines.

Not all of these rare grape varieties are used to make dry or semi-sweet wines.  In particular, Principe di Tricase takes the rare red southern Italian red grape Aleatico and does what the Italians do with it – make a dessert wine using the passito method.  In passito, the grapes are picked while quite ripe and put on trays.  The trays are placed in an outdoor cage and allowed to dry in the sun.  This concentrates the sugars such that during fermentation the alcohol content reaches around 18% before all of the sugar is converted to alcohol, killing the yeast and leaving behind a nice, sweet, smooth dessert wine.  They label this win “Romantico”, and, yes, there’s a story behind the name….  This is probably my favorite dessert wine.
It is to be noted that the tiny island of Elba is where much of this dessert wine is made.  Now Elba is also the island where Napoleon was exiled, and he was a great fan of the wine.  So great that he wrote that it was the only thing that kept him sane during his extended stay on the island!

​In the paragraphs above, one winery seems to pop up very often:  Cougar.  Cougar should be considered “rare wine central”.  Not only do they grow many such wines, but they have been able to get several identified as varietals by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau.  These include the red varieties Lambrusca di Alessandria and Brachetto, this latter used to make a sparkling wine, and the white grape variety Coda di Volpe.  They also produce the rare white varietals Falanghia and Greco di Tufo, both also grown at Monserate Winery in Fallbrook.  Monserate uses the Greco di Tufo grapes to make an “orange” wine, i.e., a wine made from white grapes but fermented in the red wine way with seeds and skins.
Fiano is a white grape variety grown mainly in Campania in Italy.  It has found its way to Principe di Ticase in Ramona, Bottaia in Temecula, and Monserate.  It can have hints of grapefruit in the taste, something I like but my wife really hates.
Two French white wines also fit in the rare category, mainly because they are used primarily for blending purposes.  Marsanne and Roussanne both come from the Rhone region of France, where they are often blended together.  Like Fiano, Roussanne tends toward the grape-fruity tastes, whereas Marsanne is peachier.  You can find two Southern California wineries that offer a Marsanne varietal:  Vineyard Grant James in Ramona and Forgotten Barrel Winery in Escondido.  A Roussanne varietal can also be obtained from Hart Winery in Temecula.
One of the lastest entries into the rare wine lists offered in Southern California is Teroldego.  Of course, it is now offered at Cougar, and Vineyard Grant James has a version.  While it yields a very dark red wine, it is not particularly tannic, with tastes similar to Zinfandel, including a bit of black pepper spiciness.  The grape ripens early, making it a bit tricky for our area but perfect for regions with short growing seasons, such as western Colorado.
Now for the bad news.  The small wineries in Southern California do not make very large quantities of any of these rare wines.  As a result, the better ones sell out quickly.  I mentioned above the problem with getting some of the Refosco.  On the plus side, expect other wineries in the area to begin offering some of these wines, and you can bet more rare varietals are on the way.  There are plenty of rare grapes in Italy yet to make their way here, and you can bet someone is going to start bringing in varieties from other warm climate countries.