New varieties for the classic Bordeaux?

Researchers are looking for new varieties for the production of classic Bordeaux wines in the changing climate. Is it possible that in the next decade the great Bordeaux will rely more on Touriga Nacional, than Cabernet Sauvignon?

In the period of harvest 2015 researchers began to sbravati small amounts of wine from grapes from the pilot site in Bordeaux, planted with 52 varieties used in the region. The goal is to select varieties which will produce wine in the Bordeaux style, when if climate change will shift the local harvest season so that the traditional varieties of the region are out of the game.

Conducted by the National Institute for Agricultural Research with support from the Wine Council of Bordeaux experiment at the same time both bold and pragmatic. “They boldly look forward, not burying its head in the sand, says about their customers, the head of the project Professor Case van Leeuwen. – If after a couple of decades in Bordeaux have to introduce new varieties, they will be ready for this.”

The need to be prepared became evident in August 2003 when a prolonged heat covered French lands. Part of the grapes in Bordeaux are practically caked on the vines, giving the wines of this vintage the aromatics of over-ripe fruit, low acidity and a shorter storage capacity.

If the climate in Bordeaux will continue to change in the direction of current trends, the winemakers should prepare for more stormy wet winter and hot dry summer and harvest season, occurring before the optimum window when the berries are ripe, the tannins ripe and the acidity has not fallen.

“We know that the best wines are obtained if the grapes ripen between September 10 and October 10,” says van Leeuwen. Early-maturing varieties like Merlot and Sauvignon Blanc are particularly vulnerable, but in General all the authorized official regulations of the appellation varieties risk for replacement in a more hot and dry Bordeaux.

The researchers walked through the hot wine countries like Greece, Spain, Italy and Portugal, has selected 52 varieties of the candidate and dropped them in 2009 at the experimental vineyard of the appellation Pessac-Leognan. Many of them are probably familiar to you, such as Sangiovese, Touriga, Xinomavro and Assyrtiko – stars in their regions, but exotic for Bordeaux.

The first task will be to get the most out of these varieties to new conditions. “We’ve never done in Bordeaux wines from these varieties,” says research engineer of the project.

Since 2012, data were collected about the content of phenols in the grapes and the maturation phase of each of the varieties. About 20 were chosen for micro-production in 2015, varietal wines from 30 pounds of grapes each.

The finished wine will be carefully studied by the team of experimenters. Then the data will be published and based on them, Association of manufacturers of the many appellations of Bordeaux will choose those varieties which, in their opinion, it will be possible to obtain wines with typical local characteristics. “We will not they have nothing to specify, the choice will be entirely theirs,” say the organizers of the project.

After that the volunteers of these appellations will be invited to grow in the selected experimental varieties, despite the fact that the wine they can not be sold under the local AOC, it can only be classified as Vin de France.

Fundamentally this project is that it aims to preserve and not to change: keep the typical profile of Bordeaux wines. Bortoluzzi wines are judged by their ability to grow beautifully. Thus, whether consumers to store their wine for decades – the question for them is secondary. This approach to quality is part of the Bordeaux mentality.

And then, there is a system of appellations, controlled by the INAO (Institut National des Appellations d’origine). The appellation is assigned only to the guilty, is able to show the unique qualities that are bound to a certain territory. And although the INAO recognize that climate change requires the search for other suitable varieties, they add that “this raises issues of preservation of the typicality of the wines of the region, without which to talk about the controlled origin wines’t do it.”

The inclusion of new varieties in the rules of the appellation – the question is not quick. It is necessary to analyze the results of applying the class to see the reaction of the market and consumers, to pass a special tasting Commission, which gives the conclusion that the wine is still “characteristic of the region.” And then to be taken for the formal procedures of amending regulations.

But despite all the complexity, research will continue, because in the future they can save the economy of the whole wine region, which produces 600-800 million bottles of wine annually and supplies them in more than 100 countries.