If you’re a longtime reader here at Grand Cru Direct, odds are good that you have your bases covered when it comes to the classics. Pinot, Chard, Cab, Champagne, Nebbiolo, Sangiovese – you likely have a range of vintages and producers available for every occasion, and perhaps even a range of formats. But what happens when the classics start to feel – well, a bit too classic? Even, dare I say, boring? Welcome to the summertime doldrums, for which there is but one antidote: variety.
There has never been a better time to drink more widely, and despite what a visit to a hip wine bar might suggest, it isn’t all unfiltered skin-contact whites and fault-riddled “chillable reds”. Below are six grape varieties that should be on the radar of every serious collector, not just for variety, but for the exceptional wines they produce. Note that “quality” stands on its own. Though these wines also provide excellent quality for their price, they have grown beyond simple QPR overachievers into grapes that produce wines worth collecting in their own right.
Greco
Italy is the natural place to search for overlooked grape varieties, and it certainly does not disappoint. Our first Italian entrant is late-ripening and retains explosive acidity despite the hot growing conditions of its native Campania. For this reason, it has traveled as far as sunny Heathcote in Australia, but its finest examples are still made in the higher-elevation parts of Campania. Mastroberardino and Quintodecimo make excellent, age-worthy examples that are still criminally underrated.
The history of this grape is shrouded in the typical blurriness of Italian tradition, but it is possible that it was introduced as early as the eighth century BCE by the Greeks, around the time usually given for the founding of Rome (“founding” is, of course, a tricky word, as the area now called Rome has been settled by humans since at least 1600 BCE). Whatever its origin, this slightly herbal and nutty variety is versatile and sturdy in the cellar – reasons, perhaps, why it has flourished for so long.
Grüner Veltliner
The flood of passable plonk in one-liter bottles and an international reputation that is still recovering from a scandal that broke over 40 years ago mean that Grüner Veltliner is wildly underrepresented in most cellars. Technically, it was Austria, and particularly Lower Austria, not Grüner Veltliner specifically, that was implicated in the diethylene glycol scandal of 1985. But, as Grüner remains inextricably linked to Austria in the minds of consumers to this day, the distinction makes little difference.
This extremely versatile grape variety is more closely related to Savagnin than grapes like Roter Veltliner that share its surname. It can make friendly, inoffensive wine when allowed to crop at very high levels, but is capable of greatness when its natural vigor is restricted in the right terroir, particularly in the Kamptal and Wachau regions. Bründlmayer’s Ried Lamm, Knoll’s Kreutles, and Hirtzberger’s long-lived Honivogl are all exceptional, and capable of graceful aging in the cellar.
Carricante
I am on the record multiple times as a card-carrying Carricante lover, but many collectors are still sleeping on this Sicilian gem. Known since at least the mid-1700s, and likely cultivated for much longer, Carricante is another Italian white variety capable of retaining laser-beam acidity in a hot, sunny climate. Amazingly, it does so while also remaining low in alcohol, despite late harvests – such is the long vegetative cycle of this cultivar.
Orange and aniseed are the classic markers of Carricante, but they are subtle and integrated amongst the crenelations of an imposing minerality in the best examples. This grape was long blended with Catarratto and Inzolia, but is increasingly made as a varietal wine, particularly in Milo, where Etna Bianco Superiore must contain at least 80% Carricante. The most exciting bottling is undoubtedly Benanti’s Pietra Marina, from 80-year-old head-trained bush vines in a single vineyard in Contrada Rinazzo, but readers should also seek out Terre Nere’s Cuvée delle Vigne Niche from Calderara Sottana.
Barbera
Barbera is certainly known to collectors, but it has long been seen as a cheaper, simpler Piedmontese grape variety to drink casually while one waits for one’s cellared Nebbiolo to mature. But at least since the creation of the Nizza DOCG in 2014 (formerly part of Barbera d’Asti), Barbera production has steadily been increasing in quality and ambition. This grape variety has been important in Piedmont since the era of phylloxera (i.e., the mid-19th century), but recent DNA profiling has suggested that it may have been introduced to the region from outside Italy around that time, rather than the much earlier 7th-century story long posited by local lore.
The usual royalty of Piedmont can all be trusted with Barbera, most of which is bottled under the Barbera d’Alba DOC, but champions of Barbera d’Asti DOCG and the newly minted Nizza DOCG are right to point out that the best-situated vineyards are much more likely to be planted to the more marketable Nebbiolo in the Barbera d’Alba communes, making a case for Barbera d’Asti despite its generally lower price tag. Michele Chiarlo’s Nizza bottlings, including the single-cru La Court, are worth seeking out to test this hypothesis.
Aglianico
“The grape of the plain” from the Spanish llano (the Spanish empire controlled southern Italy, where this grape is primarily grown, in the 15th and 16th centuries) is one possible etymological origin story for Aglianico – strange, though, since the best Aglianico by far is grown in the mountains, not the plains. The volcanic soils of Taurasi DOCG produce the finest examples of this very late-ripening grape variety, often picked into November, while still retaining its characteristic acidity.
Further south in Basilicata, Aglianico del Vulture DOC (and the Superiore DOCG) are based entirely on this sun-loving grape and grown on similarly volcanic soils. Elena Fucci and Paternoster both produce excellent examples in Vulture, while Taurasi-seekers should track down Mastroberardino’s Radici Riserva.
Zinfandel
Readers may cry foul that so well-known a grape is included in this list, but this article is simply about grapes that don’t receive their due, and Zinfandel certainly fits that description. Subjected to the dual corrupting forces of large-scale buyouts and subsequent bastardizations in the 90s and 2000s and the dreaded White Zinfandel craze, this noble grape variety was once thought to originate from Puglia in Italy (locally called Primitivo), but has now been shown to have an earlier home in Croatia, where it was proven identical to Tribidrag, thanks in part to the efforts of Croatian-American winemaker Mike Grgich.
Despite its lowly commercial standing, collectors ignore Zinfandel’s true champions at their peril. Ridge has long produced phenomenal examples of this grape variety, but readers should take care to try examples from Bedrock (Morgan Twain-Peterson MW’s label, the son of Joel Peterson of Ravenswood fame) and Easton (Bill Easton’s non-Rhône variety label in the Sierra Foothills). For true treasure-hunters, Ravenswood bottlings before the 1999 IPO and 2001 sale to Constellation Brands can still occasionally be found, and are proof of Zinfandel’s incredible capacity to age.
The Great Grape Consolidation
The wine business is, at the end of the day, just that: a business. Since the rise of varietal labeling in California in the 1960s, the financial imperative to survive has pushed farmers toward wider plantings of fewer and fewer grape varieties. What is gained in marketability is lost in diversity, making it all the more important to support underappreciated grape varieties the world over. So branch out! Taurasi or Nizza pre-arrivals will arrive just in time for chilly fall evenings, and there’s never a bad time to have a good stash of Etna Bianco or top-tier Grüner. I promise, the Chardonnay and Cabernet will still be there once you’ve finished.