Emerald Riesling - Shomron, Israel

There's a tension in wine, as there is in many fields, between science and art.  There are those who believe that science and technology are the way forward and that the best thing we can do to make better wine is to do more research and build more machines.  On the other end of the spectrum, you have the minimalists and the artisans who believe that the best wine is made with little intervention and in the most natural way possible.  Science is an interesting tool that is best used sparingly, if at all, and technological advances in viticulture and oenology are best avoided as they interfere with the natural process that makes wine more than just an alcoholic beverage.  Opinions on the role of research and technology in the field of wine is more contentious than for any other agricultural product on earth.  While the organic and natural food movements are definitely gaining steam these days, most of us still don't really care whether our corn is genetically engineered or whether our wheat was picked by hand or by machine.  When it comes to grapes, though, it's a whole different ballgame.

As with most issues, I find myself somewhere in the middle of this argument.  I am fascinated by the body of scientific research done on grapes, as many of my recent posts will indicate.  I also can't help but feel that modern technology has a deserved place in most wineries and has served to elevate the average quality of wine on a worldwide scale to an extent that is difficult to measure.  On the other hand, I am wary of things like reverse osmosis machines and Mega Purple.  I have a soft spot for the backwards, ultra-naturalist wines of producers like Frank Cornelissan and Vinos Ambiz, but I wouldn't want to drink them all the time.  I believe in terroir, but am not a fanatic or a mysterian about it and am skeptical about the kinds of things that a place can actually contribute to the overall flavor of a wine.  I guess what I'm trying to say is that I have faith that science and technology can deepen our understanding of wine and even improve the overall quality of it, but only if applied in a careful, judicious kind of way that is respectful of the unique qualities of wine that make it different from any other agricultural or consumer product.

All of which brings us to Dr. Harold Olmo and today's grape, Emerald Riesling.  We've briefly dealt with Dr. Olmo in the past when we took at look at one of his creations, the Symphony grape.  Dr. Olmo was a scientist at the University of California, Davis, which is the institution in the US most synonymous with grape and wine research.  As a result, UC Davis is something of a polarizing force in the world of wine and has been at the forefront of the struggle between the idea of wine as an agricultural consumer product and the idea of wine as an artisanal creation that is crafted, not manufactured.  UC Davis was somewhat notorious at one time for churning out winemakers whose wineries resembled laboratories more than farm buildings and who were more concerned with making a technically pristine wine than an interesting, characterful one.

Dr. Olmo worked at UC Davis for many decades.  In the 1950's, his creation of a quarantine facility for foreign vines on the UC Davis campus allowed California wineries to import vines safely and legally into the state and resulted in an expansion of the number of varieties available for use within the state.  What he is best known for, though, are the so-called Olmo grapes.  He is credited with creating over 30 new grape varieties in his time at UC Davis, which have had a huge impact on the wine industry in the state of California, though most consumers aren't aware that the grapes exist.  Since UC Davis is a state agricultural school, the focus of the grape breeding program there (as it is in similar institutions in Germany or at Cornell in New York) was to create new grapes that could be profitably grown (meaning the vines should yield prolifically) in some of the harsher climactic regions of California.  In particular, Olmo was interested in grapes that could withstand the intense heat of the Central Valley, which is much too hot for most European grape varieties.  His aim was mostly to create high yielding vines that could tolerate these conditions and would make "good" wine, and it is this focus on production over superior quality that causes many wine lovers to look on Olmo's work with suspicion (or outright disdain).  While his work wasn't revolutionary in terms of quality wine production, it was profoundly important economically and there's something to be said for that.  The two most successful grapes he created to this end were Ruby Cabernet and Rubired, which are widely grown in some of the hotter valley regions of California, but which are mostly used in bulk wine production.

The most successful white grape that Olmo bred was Emerald Riesling, which was created by crossing Riesling and Muscadelle (maybe...see note at the bottom).  Emerald Riesling and Ruby Cabernet were Olmo's first wine grapes (he had released a few table grapes prior to this) and they were released together in 1948 after nearly a decade of testing and experimentation.  Like the grapes mentioned above, Emerald Riesling was bred specifically to yield profusely and to endure the intense heat of some of California's hot, fertile valley floors.  Unlike Rubired and Ruby Cabernet, Emerald Riesling has enjoyed some success as a varietal wine.  In the 1960's and 70's, Paul Masson marketed a wine called "Emerald Dry" which was made from Emerald Riesling grapes, which was quite successful for awhile.  The wine is apparently still made (with a retail price around $5 a bottle), though it is nowhere near as popular these days.  It is estimated that fewer than 250 acres (100 hectares) of Emerald Riesling are left in the United States.

Though the grape is declining in popularity in its native home, it is has found new life in an unlikely place: Israel. Israel is interesting because it lacks any native wine grape varieties, so all grapes grown for wine production in Israel have been imported into the country at some point.  In the 1880's, Baron Edmond de Rothschild decided that Israel would be a good place to grow grapes for wine.  In 1887, Rothschild began to bring in the major red Bordeaux varieties and began to focus seriously on producing fine wine in Israel.  Phylloxera put an early stop to Rothschild's dreams, though, and in its aftermath, the locals planted the high yielding, low quality grapes of southern France like Carignan and Alicante Bouschet.  The wine industry began to turn to the "international grape" varieties in the 1970's and quality wine production really began in earnest in the 1980's.

Emerald Riesling was brought over at some point in the 1970's and by the mid 80's, it was the best selling white wine in Israel.  Like Lancers or Mateus from Portugal or Liebfraumilch from Germany, these wines were made in a semi-sweet style and were not all that expensive.  The wines are still fairly popular, but they don't seem to be the face of the Israeli wine industry any longer.  I'm finding more and more Israeli wines made from the international varieties on my local shelves these days, but have only ever found a single bottle of Emerald Riesling.

The wine that I was able to find was the 2010 Tishbi Emerald Riesling from Shomron, Israel, which I bought for the whopping price of $18 at a convenience store in Harvard Square.  In the glass, the wine was a pale lemon color with a lot of green in it.  The nose was nicely aromatic with juicy, exuberant pineapple, green apple and lime fruits.  On the palate the wine was medium bodied with medium acidity.  It was off-dry to medium sweet with flavors of sweet pineapple, honeyed apple and lemon curd with a touch of honeysuckle flower.  The finish on the wine was jarringly short and ended on an abrupt, bitter note.  One of the hallmarks of Emerald Riesling is its ability to maintain its high acid level in very hot growing areas, but I found this example kind of flabby.  It does really need some acid to prop up the sugar in the wine, but it ultimately falls flat and just isn't that interesting to drink.  Fans of Liebfraumilch will find a lot to like here, but $18 a bottle is too much to ask for wine at that kind of quality level.  I'd avoid this unless you're interested in it for novelty's sake or are a big fan of alcoholic Kool-Aid.

**Every source online says that Emerald Riesling is a cross between Riesling and Muscadelle, but the Oxford Companion to Wine has it listed as a cross between Muscadelle and Grenache.  When I emailed them to inquire about the discrepancy, Julia Harding would only respond that the Riesling x Muscadelle info was incorrect, but that I'd have to wait for the publication of their new book on grapes for the full story.  I was able to track down Dr. Olmo's paper written in 1948 when he released the grapes where he says the grape is a hybrid between White Riesling and Muscadelle of California.  The VIVC has the parentage listed as Riesling x Muscadelle of California, and Muscadelle of California is listed separately from Muscadelle.  My guess is that Muscadelle of California is a different grape than the Muscadelle propagated in France and Australia, but since the OCW is being coy about it, I suppose we'll have to wait until October to know for sure.

**UPDATE**

Reader George sent me a link to a UC Davis newsletter published in 2006 that clarifies this issue (here).  The correct parentage for Emerald Riesling does appear to be Muscadelle x Grenache.  I've written a longer piece here detailing this information and also detailing many of the problems that I have with the way that the OCW has handled this issue.

Hondarrabi Zuri - Bizkaiko, Txakolina, Spain

**I've done a lot of research since I first wrote this post, which is summarized here.  The post below still has my tasting note and the early stages of my investigation, but those curious about the identity of Hondarrabi Zuri are encouraged to read the newer post linked above**

When I started calling up my usual sources for today's grape, I wasn't really expecting any surprises.  After all, I'd written about Hondarrabi Beltza here about six months ago and there really weren't any big shockers there.  I figured that writing about Hondarrabi Zuri would be as simple as finding a few facts out about the grape, writing my impressions and moving on.  The first source I checked was the Oxford Companion to Wine and the bombshell was waiting for me in the last line of the Hondarrabi Zuri entry: "DNA profiling has surprisingly shown that hondarrabi zuri is the same as the American hybrid noah."

Regular readers will note that in the last post I wrote on the Turbiana grape, I expressed my frustration with the fact that the Oxford Companion to Wine frequently refers to "DNA profiling" without providing specific citations to the original source material.  This particular entry is no different and it really serves as a great example of why you should always try as hard as you can to find the original source material if you are really interested in learning about something.  I have been scouring the internet for hours and have not only been unable to locate any paper indicating that Hondarrabi Zuri and Noah are the same grape, but I haven't been able to find another site on the internet reporting that information either.  The closest thing I've been able to find is an off-hand reference in a paper from 2002 which was analyzing the DNA of many different Spanish wine grapes (citation: Martin, J, Borrego, J, Cabello, F, & Ortiz, J 2003, 'Characterization of Spanish grapevine cultivar diversity using sequence-tagged microsatellite site markers', Genome, 46, 1, p. 10, Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 1 March 2012.).  In that paper, the authors note that "Ondarrabi Zuri," which is actually the proper cultivar name for the Hondarrabi Zuri grape, had a very unique genotype that could likely be explained by its "probable hybrid origin."  Their citation for this probable hybrid origin, though, is an unpublished paper by a different team of Spanish researchers.  What their paper is clear on, though, is that Hondarrabi Zuri and Hondarrabi Beltza are not related genetically, as they differed at every section of DNA that the scientists analyzed.

At this point, without any specific citation, all I can really say is that Hondarrabi Zuri is genetically very different from other Spanish grapes.  The VIVC database, which does use DNA research to organize their entries, does indicate the species of each grape they have an entry for.  Their entry on Hondarrabi Zuri, though, indicates that it is a vinifera species of vine.  Noah is not listed as an accepted synonym for the grape and, further, if you go to the entry on Noah, that grape is listed as an "interspecific crossing" with a parentage of v. riparia and v. labrusca.  The VIVC is usually pretty reliable but they certainly aren't foolproof and I've found that some of their entries lag a little bit behind the most current research.  However, since I have had no luck tracking down any published papers providing proof of a link between Hondarrabi Zuri and Noah or even between Hondarrabi Zuri and any hybrid grape, I'm going to guess that the VIVC hasn't been able to find any either and that explains their classification of the two grapes within their database.

So, here we are.  The Oxford Companion to Wine says something that could be true, but which is very controversial if it is (after all, hybrid grapes are not allowed in wines made in the EU).  But, since I can't find any other corroborating source, I have to withhold judgement one way or the other.  It seems like the kind of thing that should be pretty obvious since Noah is known for having that "foxy" aroma and flavor bemoaned by so many wine critics.  In the paper cited above, the authors do mention that Hondarrabi Zuri has a particularly foxy character, but I've never picked up on it in any of the wines that I've tried from the grape.  Most other online sources, like Wikipedia, believe that Hondarrabi Zuri is native to the Basque region of Spain.  I can't find any reference for how long Hondarrabi Zuri has been known in the Basque region of Spain, which would be helpful since we know that Noah was created in 1868 in Illinois.  However long it has been there, as of 2004 it was planted on about 900 acres of land in Spain, primarily in the Txakoli regions of northeastern Spain.  There is another grape in the Basque region called Hondarrabi Zuri Zerratie which, I believe, is the Petit Courbu of Southwest France.

I was able to try a bottle of the 2009 Berroia Txakoli which is 90% Hondarrabi Zuri, 6% Folle Blanche and, oddly, 4% Riesling.  The wine is from the tiny Bizkaiko Txakolina region, which covers a mere 140 acres of land.  Hondarrabi Beltza is generally the preferred grape here, but not in this wine.  In the glass the wine was a very pale silvery lemon color.  The nose was shy with some white peach and lemon-lime citrus aromas that never really open up.  On the palate the wine was medium bodied with fairly high acid.  There were flavors of fresh lemony citrus and white peach with a touch of lime and a kind of chalky minerality on the finish.  I really enjoyed the contrast between the broad peachy flavors and the sharp, zippy citrus. The chalkiness does eventually give way to a clean, stony minerality as the wine opens up.  I've always enjoyed wines from this region and find that their acidity helps them complement a wide variety of foods.  They remind me of Riesling both in their flavor profiles and in their versatility at the table.  They do tend to run a bit expensive, though, so if you're looking at something at the $10 end of the market, you probably won't find a Txakoli to love, but around the $20 price point there are many options, nearly all of which are interesting and quite tasty.


**UPDATE**

This issue vexed me enough to email one of the authors of the article I cited above, Dr. Jesús Maria Ortiz of the Complutense University of Madrid in Spain.  Dr. Ortiz informed me that there are two different grapes known as Ondarrabi Zuri in the Basque region.  The most common is the vinifera species used in the wines made in the Txakoli regions of Spain.  This Ondarrabi Zuri is the grape that you taste when you buy wines that indicate that they are made from Hondarrabi Zuri.  The other is a hybrid grape which is "almost inexistent in the region (ie the Basque country) at this time," though it was at one point somewhat widely planted.  I'm not sure why, but in the study cited above, the research group was using a sample of the hybrid grape and not the vinifera grape, which gave them such odd results.  Whatever study the Oxford Companion to Wine is citing probably had the same issue, which would lead them to their bizarre conclusion that the Hondarrabi Zuri of Txakoli fame is the same as the American hybrid Noah.

I further asked Dr. Ortiz if the vinifera Hondarrabi Zuri was related to Hondarrabi Beltza and he provided me with the DNA microsatellite profiles that indicate that the two grapes do not share a common parent and are not closely related to one another despite their similar names ("zuri" is Basque for white and "beltza" is Basque for black).  Dr. Ortiz has infoprmed me that the Hondarrabi part is from a town in the Basque country called Fuenterrabía, which is spelled Hondarribia in the Basque language.  This town is very close to the French border, and Dr. Ortiz's explanation is that several grape varieties came into Spain from France through this town.  When they were distributed to other regions within the Basque region, they were called Hondarrabi after the town they were distributed through.  Many of the other grapes grown within the Basque country are indeed French transplants, such as Petit Courbu and Folle Blanche (and, as noted above, Petit Courbu is known as Hondarrabi Zuri Zerratie).

Turbiana (Trebbiano di Lugana) - Veneto, Italy

It isn't often the case that I end up more confused after researching a grape than I was when I started, but that's almost what has happened in researching today's grape, Turbiana. The confusion that I had to sort through in order to figure out just what Turbiana actually is has steeled my resolve to provide citations in any blog post where I refer to published results.  In the past, I've tried to provide links whenever the articles are freely available online, and when they aren't, I've tried to either provide a citation or give enough information so that an interested reader can pursue the article themselves, but from now on, any research that I consult, I will be sure to cite.

It all started today when Nick over at the Spirited Gourmet sent me an email letting me know he had just gotten a wine made from the Turbiana grape in his shop.  By chance, I had recently had a different wine made from the Turbiana grape and was working my way through my notes to post about it.  Nick's email spurred me on, so I started to do some digging.  The Oxford Companion to Wine had no listing for Turbiana, but, in the entry on Lugana, did mention that Trebbiano di Lugana, the former name for Turbiana, was the same as Trebbiano di Soave, which is similar to Verdicchio.  When you search for Turbiana in Wikipedia, it automatically redirects you to the entry on Verdicchio.  The VIVC takes you directly to the entry on Verdicchio when you search for Turbiana as well.  Once you get past those three frontline sources, though, all hell starts to break loose.

As mentioned above, Turbiana was traditionally known as Trebbiano di Lugana and was thought to be just another member of the vast and varied Trebbiano family.  Several websites that I found point to "DNA research" that proves that what was known as Trebbiano di Lugana is actually genetically distinct from the Trebbiano family and is now known as Turbiana.  Other sites imply that Turbiana and Trebbiano di Lugana still coexist and are actually two distinct grapes.  Yet another site maintains that Trebbiano di Lugana is merely the local name for Trebbiano di Soave and that "recent research" has found that this grape, now called Turbiana, is not related to Trebbiano Veronese, whatever that is, and, further, is not related to Verdicchio.  The winery's website still refers to the grape as Trebbiano di Lugana with no mention of Turbiana at all.

What nearly all of the sites (except for the winery's) are trying to get at is that Turbiana is an independent grape variety that sciences has recently freed from the Trebbiano family.  Nearly every site linked above refers vaguely to "research" but none of them give a direct citation. I've noticed that The Oxford Companion to Wine does this constantly, which drives me a little bit crazy.  When I see a reference to "DNA research" and I know the person making the reference isn't a scientist or geneticist themselves, I always like to try to find the paper myself to be sure that the paper is actually saying the things that the writer is attributing to it.  It took a few hours of really creative googling, but I believe that the paper that is being referred to is actually this one from 2001.  In that paper, the researchers perform microsatellite analysis on 7 different Trebbiano subvarieties and 17 other grape varieties that look similar to Trebbiano.  What they found was that there was a lot of genetic diversity among the samples that they tested, but the samples that were the most similar were Trebbiano di Soave and Verdicchio (which, it turns out, are the same grape [additional source]) and Trebbiano di Soave and Trebbiano di Lugana.  The researchers are clear that Trebbiano di Soave and Verdicchio are synonyms, but it is a little less clear what the relationship is between Trebbiano di Soave and Trebbiano di Lugana.  The two grapes were 97% similar in the sections of their genetic code that the scientists tested for, but the only conclusions that the researchers draw is that the grapes are "genetically similar."

The more interesting thing that the study found is that the various members of the Trebbiano family are genetically dissimilar enough from one another for the researchers to conclude that they probably do not share a common ancestor.  Which not only means that they are all different grapes, but, further, that they probably aren't even related to one another!  The experiment examined Trebbiano Toscano, Trebbiano d'Abruzzo, Trebbiano Spoletino, Trebbiano di Spagna and Trebiano Romagnolo in addition to Trebbiano di Soave and Trebiano di Lugana and found that only the latter two were similar enough to be considered related.  So even though all of the grapes above are considered under the same banner of "Trebbiano," and, though they certainly have many of the same kinds of physical characteristics, genetically speaking, they're as different as they can be.

At this point, it's reasonable to ask why they all have the same name if they aren't related to one another.  Most theories about the origin of the name Trebbiano posit some geographical origin like the name of an ancient town in Tuscany or the Trebbia river in  Liguria.  That kind of origin story makes sense only if all of the grapes known as Trebbiano are the same grape or if they all can be traced back to a common ancestor located in that geographical area.  Since we know that isn't the case, the researchers conclude that the name probably comes from the word "draibio" which means "vigorous shoot" in Frankonian.  I don't know about the details (it has something to do with Charlemagne, I think) since the paper that they cite for that theory is in German, but the crux of the matter is that name Trebbiano comes from a description of how the vine grows rather than a location, which would explain the genetic diversity of the multitude of grapes with that name.

The story doesn't quite end there, though.  Another research group in Verona did another type of genetic experiment on Trebbiano di Lugana, Trebbiano di Soave and Verdicchio (among others), and found that those three grapes were essentially the same.  So, essentially, Turbiana is Trebbiano di Lugana which is the same as Trebbiano di Soave, both of which are different from Trebbiano Toscano or any other kind of Trebbiano, but which are the same as Verdicchio.  The slight differences in the DNA of Trebbiano di Lugana and Trebbiano di Soave found in the previous study are here attributed to slight differences in the soil and microclimate where the grapes are found, which, it turns out, can cause slight changes in a vine's genetic expression.

I was able to find a bottle of the 2009 Ottella "Lugana," which is grown near Lake Garda in the Veneto region of Italy.  In the glass the wine had a medium silvery lemon color.  The nose was nicely aromatic with lemony citrus, white peach and a kind of clean, stony river water sort of smell.  On the palate the wine was medium bodied with medium acidity.  There were flavors of white peach and lemon peel with that same stony kind of minerality on the finish.  It was a little flat and could have used a bit more acidity.  The nose was more enjoyable than the palate was, but it was still and pretty good wine for around $15.  It wasn't all that complex or deep, but it was crisp and refreshing and sometimes that's just the sort of thing you need.  I prefer Verdicchio from the Marche, but this is an interesting wine with a really crazy story you can tell to your friends while drinking it.  Or you can just enjoy it.

Catarratto - Sicily, Italy

Pop quiz time again:  what is the second most planted grape in all of Italy?  As you might expect, Sangiovese is number one but I would have guessed that Trebbiano was right behind it and I definitely would have guessed that Trebbiano was the most widely planted white grape in Italy.  It is true that if you count all of the various sub-types of Trebbiano under a single heading, then Trebbiano becomes the most widely planted grape in Italy, but as of 2000, the Istituto Statistica Mercati Agro-Alimentari in Italy regards them separately, so I'll follow suit.  Trebbiano Toscana comes in third right behind today's grape, Catarratto (specifically Catarratto Bianco Comune, but we'll get to that in a minute).

The really amazing thing about Catarratto's high placement on that list is that all of the plantings of the grape are on Sicily, and nearly all of them are concentrated in the western part of the island.  In fact, Catarratto accounts for over 60% of the vineyard area on the island of Sicily, which is no mean feat as Sicily has more acreage devoted to the vine than any other region of Italy with over 330,000 acres planted (how the grape got to Sicily is a bit of a mystery as recent DNA testing [source] has shown that it is an offspring of the Garganega grape, which is primarily cultivated on the northern end of the Italian mainland in the Veneto region).  Catarratto Bianco Comune covered about 109,000 acres in 2000, which was actually down from nearly 150,000 acres in 1990.  None of those figures account for plantings of Catarratto Bianco Lucido which stood at about 20,000 acres in 2000.  So what's the big deal?  Why is so much land devoted to this grape?  The reason is pretty simple.  Catarratto is low-maintenance in the vineyard and yields like crazy, which is the perfect storm for growers whose main concern is selling their juice off for bulk wine production.  Catarratto is also important in the production of Marsala, but, as mentioned in the Grillo post a few days back, Marsala production has also become an industrialized, bulk production kind of affair and Catarratto's high yields, fairly neutral character and tendency to oxidize easily are all perfect for those kinds of operations.

I noted above that the planting figures were different for Catarratto Bianco Comune and Catarratto Bianco Lucido.  The Italian authorities recognize these as two distinct grape varieties, but recent DNA testing (source) has confirmed that they are actually clonal variants of the same grape (there are actually more than just these two, all genetically identical, but these are the most important in terms of acreage and volume).  They are distinguished from one another by the relative presence or absence of a whitish bloom on the skins of the grapes as they mature.  Comune has the most whitish color present while Lucido has less, creating a clearer, glossier looking grape skin.  Another sub-variety known as Extra-Lucido was discovered and isolated in 1971 from some Lucido vines and, as you might expect, it has virtually no bloom on the skins.  Comune is the more prolific producer, which is why its plantings tower over plantings for the other sub-varieties (all are rather voluminous yielders, though).  The Oxford Companion to Wine asserts that Lucido is the finer of the two in terms of quality production, but Bastianich and Lynch in their Vino Italiano hold that the differences between the two sub-varieties is subtle at most.  The tiebreaker goes to Nicolas Belfrage who, in his Brunello to Zibibbo maintains that Lucido is indeed the finer of the sub-varieties.

I don't know which one was in the bottle of Catarratto that I was able to find, but the odds suggest that it's probably Catarratto Bianco Comune.  I picked up a bottle of the 2008 Feudo Montoni Catarratto locally for about $20.  In the glass the wine was a fairly deep lemon-gold color.  The nose was nicely aromatic with green apple and apple pie filling aromas with some pineapple tropical fruit notes.  On the palate the wine was medium bodied with medium acidity.  There were flavors of baked apples and apple cider with a touch of lemony citrus.  The finish was bitter with a powdery, chalky kind of edge to it.  The cidery notes kept getting stronger as the wine stayed open, making it harder and harder to drink.  Overall, I didn't care for this at all.  Even taking into account that it is probably just a little past its prime, the flavors here were too one dimensional and the chalky texture was so unpleasant that it became a struggle to get through this bottle.  I'm always wary of writing a grape off due to one bad bottle, so I'll keep my eyes open for something a little fresher and will post a review if I come across anything.