Six great wines from endangered grapes

2023-06-02T10:43:21.382Z

Highlights: Spain has a catalog of 400 varieties of vine and several wineries have come to the rescue of many of them almost disappeared. This recovery effort is repeated, with greater or lesser intensity, in other parts of the Spanish wine geography. Spain has a wide and diverse autochthonous ampelographic heritage, much of it hidden, forgotten, undervalued or almost disappear. A treasure of our genetic diversity and a botanical richness that offers personality and oenological potential to our wines, but can also be decisive when facing the effects of climate change.

Spain has a catalog of 400 varieties of vine and several wineries have come to the rescue of many of them almost disappeared

Recover the past to win the future. This is what the second wave of recovery of ancestral varieties in danger of extinction is intended to do. And there is a task, because Spain has a wide and diverse autochthonous ampelographic heritage, with more than 400 varieties of vine registered, much of it hidden, forgotten, undervalued or almost disappeared. A treasure of our genetic diversity and a botanical richness that not only offers personality and oenological potential to our wines, but can also be decisive when facing the effects of climate change, the greatest challenge that viticulture currently has, since they are usually strains resistant to high temperatures, drought, pests and diseases.

This is what happens with varieties such as the pirene, recovered by the Torres Family within an ambitious program that includes grapes such as garró, querol, moneu and forcada, present in the Clos Ancestral wine. This recovery effort is repeated, with greater or lesser intensity, in other parts of the Spanish wine geography. As in Galicia, with espadeiro, sousón, carabuñeira, brancellao or ferrón; in Castilla y León, with staladiña, bruñal, and colorado rescued by Javier Sanz in La Seca (Valladolid) among centennial vines of pre-phylloxera Verdejo; in Rioja, with maturana tinta and turuntes; in La Mancha, with moravia and red fragoso; in Catalonia, in addition to those mentioned by the Torres Family, with sumoll, picapoll and mandó; in Valencia, also with the aforementioned command and bows; in the Canary Islands, with bastardo, vijariego and sabro; in Aragon, with alcañón and parraleta, rescued by the winery El Grillo y la Luna; in Andalusia, with romé, among others.

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A list that grows, sometimes avoiding the obstacles of some Regulatory Council more inclined to facilitate the authorization of foreign varieties than to promote the recovery of their own. In any case, it is worth highlighting the remarkable effort to rescue and value native grapes that bring uniqueness and quality to Spanish wines. As evidenced by these five unique reds that look to the future with hope.