Back in 2009, everyone in Australia must have felt pretty good about their unique Albariño wines. You can hear them now: “Gee, isn’t our terroir real swell? It gives such different Albariño wines from those made everywhere else”; or perhaps “… It’s the terroir man, that’s where it’s at. Terroir, buddy, I tell you, listen to me now, terroir’s the thing”. Well, maybe so, but then in 2009 the roof caved in on all that “terroir” gobbledygook: the fact is, they weren’t making wine with Albariño at all, but with Savagnin, an altogether different grape from Jura. Hence, wines that tasted nothing like those made with Albariño: and so they should given the main ingredient was completely different. Try making a carbonara pasta with tomatoes instead of eggs and see what you get: whatever it is, it will taste nothing like carbonara, and neither it should. Just like it is in cuisine, ingredients count in wine too.
Similar grapevine identification mistakes to that Australian example abound throughout history, and are very common still today. In fact, this example from Australia is but one in a very long line of similar mistakes made in the would-be identification of grape varieties. In this specific Australian case, the error was traced back to a mix-up that occurred in the early 1990s when Spanish authorities supplied the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) with the incorrect propagating material (sending them Savagnin thinking it was Albariño), leading to the widespread planting of the French variety instead of the Spanish one in poor Australia (in this case, very much an innocent bystander). Trouble is, while everybody likes to talk terroir (and don’t we know it), wine is, first and foremost, about the grape variety used to make it. Clearly, geological differences, water regimen diversity, altitude and exposures all play a role in fashioning site-specific wines: but the main determinant of the way a wine will taste is always the grape variety that was used to make it. Just like a red apple tastes different from a green apple, and an apple pie made with one of those types of apple will taste very different from an apple pie made with the other, then a wine made with Cabernet Sauvignon will always taste different from one made with Pinot Noir. It cannot be otherwise: in fact, it’s completely illogical to think that it would be otherwise. It follows that if and when you get two such wines tasting the same, it’s not terroir that accounts for any of the perceived similarities in the wines, but most likely it’s just that you are tasting wines made with grapes that are not what you were told they were. It would be worth a laugh or two, if the consequences of such mistakes would not border on the severe, even dangerous.
Just how does the identification of grape varieties work (or doesn’t)?
