Q: If I’m starting a winery and order, say, chardonnay vines, how do I know they’re chardonnay when they all look exactly the same?
P.C., Roseville, NSW
Illustration by Simon Letch.Credit:
Don’t worry; the nursery person will know. There’s an entire science devoted to grapevine recognition. Ampelographers know how to identify vine varieties by the shape, size and colour of their leaves, shoots, bunches, growth habit and so on. And if they’re ever in doubt, they consult learned tomes devoted to such details.
That said, mistakes do still happen. About 20 years ago, some Australian winemakers wanting to plant albariño, a vine that produces a quite lovely white wine in north-west Spain, were sold massive quantities of savagnin, a quite different vine and unknown here at the time. Good thing savagnin makes a pretty handy wine, but it can be hard cheddar if you invest a lot of hectares in the wrong vines.
Further back in time, nurseries here would distribute “merlot” vines far and wide. Trouble was, some were cabernet franc. Some wineries, such as Victoria-based Brown Brothers, got around that rather deftly by labelling the wine merlot cabernet franc. In the early days of the viognier planting craze, the owners of one vineyard discovered that 60 per cent of the vines they were cultivating were sauvignon blanc. At least there was a good market.
The big problem with mistaken identity is not the wine, but the name of the wine. People tend to buy wine with names they know: not grk (from Croatia) or, indeed, vranac (from Montenegro, Dalmatia and Herzegovina, among others) – at least not in this country.
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When it comes to common varieties such as chardonnay, though, you really can’t go wrong. Everyone in the industry knows what a chardonnay vine looks like: broad, bright green leaves with almost no sinuses (the curvy inlets between the lobes or points) and lovely green-gold berries in compact little bunches that taste like, well, chardonnay.
And if it turns out to be rkatsiteli, an important grape in Georgia, just label it Pete’s dry white or Pete’s Folly. The punters will love it.
Got a drinks question for Huon Hooke? thefullbottle@goodweekend.com.au