Younger wine buyers seem smitten with the notion that commonplace grapes like chardonnay and cabernet still hold some interest, but they also know that unusual varieties can offer excitement.
As a result, specialty wine shops in the United States now are being asked to carry more unusual wines that the shop owners once happily dismissed as bizarre. This includes grapes that have long been produced in some regions of the world but never were imported here.
What makes this interesting is that some of these wines are actually being produced here using grapes from other countries, and some of these wines are fascinating and perfect for certain types of foods.
Take, for example, the grape called ribolla gialla, a white grape from Italy’s Friuli that smells a bit like wild berries, peach blossoms, and tropical fruits like pineapple. Not many U.S. winemakers produce one, but a small producer in northern Sonoma County, Miro Cellars, makes a stellar version that’s soft and approachable. It’s a perfect aperitif wine, and also could be paired with slightly sweeter main dishes.
For dark-red wine lovers, teroldego is an Italian variety that offers intense flavors but with a little less intensity of both acidity and tannin than other red Italian wines. This relatively rare grape is grown in only scant amounts in the United States. Teroldego appears to age nicely, but it works exceptionally well when it’s young with beef stew, short ribs, and other hearty meat dishes. It’s fun to try after two hours in a decanter. The best American version is produced by Montoliva in the hills above Grass Valley, California.
Silvaner is a white wine grape that produces a fascinating wine not unlike dry riesling, especially when produced in Germany, where it’s highly regarded. Very few silvaners are produced here. Slightly confusingly, it’s exactly the same grape that’s produced in Alsace, in northern France, where it’s often spelled sylvaner, with a “y.”
I’m one of very few U.S. wine writers who adore blaufrankisch, a grape that appreciates colder temperatures and normally produces relatively tart red wines that are lower in tannins. The best examples of these blueberry-scented wines historically come from Austria, but one of the finest examples I have tasted is from a small Michigan winery called Left Foot Charley and made by a brilliant winemaker, Bryan Ulbrich. It’s a wine that I love to serve to people who appreciate great structural red wines and are fascinated by interesting varieties.
One of the messages of the preceding essay is that diversity today is definitely worth investigating, mainly because the wines offer a change of personality from the ordinary. And because the only people making these wines are doing so mainly because they have an interest in the multiplicity of aromas and flavors rarely seen in this country.
