Alsace wants to try out 16 new grape varieties to see if they can help wine producers in the region cope with climate change and reduce their use of plant protection.
The 16 grapes are ten white grape varieties:
- chenin blanc,
- floréal,
- johannite,
- petit manseng,
- opalor,
- petit courbu,
- selenor,
- souvignier gris,
- vermentino and
- voltis
And six red varieties:
- nero d’avola,
- coliris,
- malbec,
- nebbiolo,
- sirano and
- syrah
The grapes have been selected according to various criteria, mainly resistance to disease, time of ripening and level of acidity.
If the INAO (Institut national de l’Origine et de la Qualité) will approve all these grapes is currently unclear. Certain grape varieties are considered “emblematic” for a certain wine-growing area, and there is a kind of agreement between the wine regions and INAO that these varieties should not be integrated into the rules of other areas.
Alsace, e.g. does not want riesling or gewurztraminer to appear on labels other than Alsatian wine. Now they want to experiment with petit manseng, the emblematic grape of Jurançon, the chenin blanc of the Loire Valley and the malbec of Cahors.
Not at all certain that it will be approved. 8 out of the 16 grape varieties – floréal, johannite, souvignier gris, voltis, opals, selenos, coliris and sirano – are fungus-resistant hybrids.
Read more: vitisphere
But perhaps this can lead to less provincial chauvinism among the French wine regions and that e.g. Alsace no longer objects to others using riesling, etc. A chauvinism which, to be fair, is also wide-spread in other countries, e.g. Italy, that wants a monopoly on the grape name vermentino.
