My name is Keith Beavers, I went apple picking for the first time ever.Yes, my first time.And I am going annually, and I'm making apple butter, and I'm just overwhelmed.Am I gonna do any of this?I wanna do all of it.
I'm hoping I... What's going on, wine lovers?From the Vinepair Podcasting Network, this is the Wine 101 Podcast. My name is Keith Beavers and I am the Tastings Director of The Vine Pair.
Last week I said I would get down and dirty with the hybrids, so let's get down and dirty with the hybrids, because hybrids are fun, they're a thing, it's happening, and it's kind of an awesome future thing.
I find it very interesting that at this moment in our history in American wine, we, not only in American wine, but European wine, we are embracing the hybrid like we've never done before.It's 2024 and we are embracing the hybrid.
I want to put a stamp on that.It's a timestamp. I know it was happening beforehand, but it wasn't until 2024, we really started seeing it ramp up and be not only embraced, not only accepted, but embraced and celebrated and used.
And it's, it's very cool.And the hybrid is a. It's part of our history.These grapes that we'll talk about how they're made and all this stuff, but these are the varieties that helped form the American drinking culture.I know it's crazy.
I'd like to say it was vitis vinifera, which is European varieties. And that's not the case.I mean, sort of, but not really.
The mission grape came from Spain, then the Canary Islands, then Mexico City, and then up into San Diego, working its way up to Sonoma.
But by the time that had all happened, there was a whole East Coast thing going on, where, you know, the settlers were trying to plant the vines they brought from Europe and watching them die in front of their faces.
and then trying to use the indigenous varieties and not really dig in the way that those tasted.
So it would make sense that the hybrid situation might help taking the best of what they was indigenous and the best of what they brought in and trying to create a hybrid that would survive and thrive.
And all they really had to do was plant their Vitus vinifera varieties and just wait.I don't know if they were waiting, but till nature randomly cross-pollinated and created new vines.
And what that would create is what the Oxford Wine Companion calls the offspring of two varieties of different species.That's a hybrid. or as the EU calls them these days, interspecific cross.
This is opposed to an intraspecific cross, which would be a cross between two varieties of the same species.For example, a Vitis vinifera cross with another Vitis vinifera, and one of the most famous of these in the wine world would be Muller Turgau.
Muller Turgau was named after the dude, Muller and Turgau, the cannon in Switzerland in which he created this wine.And what he was trying to do, he was trying to create a Riesling-like
wine grape that would thrive or last or do well in the climate in which he was in.And he thought he was crossing Riesling with Sylvaner, but that wasn't the case.He was crossing Riesling with a grape called Madeleine Royale.
which is a table grape, but a Vitus vinifera table grape from this area.
And the result was a grape that didn't really have any Riesling qualities, had more Silvaner qualities, but it was called Muller Tergal, which we probably, some of you guys may know today.
It's not as popular as it once was, and they're not phasing it out, but no one's really excited about Molo Turgau.I personally think it's really great.If you've ever had it from Northern Italy, it's delish.
But Sieri Novocello makes an amazing Molo Turgau.I digress. as awesome as the natural ability for the diecious grapevine to pollinate and cross in a natural way, which has happened throughout history.
Think Pinot Noir, Aligote, all those episodes we talked about when that happened back in Burgundy in France.But today hybrids are created with deliberate intention.
And I find it very interesting that the really the first, if you want to talk about hybrids, the way it worked out was the ramp up was during the phylloxera epidemic.So go listen to the phylloxera episode if you want to get a whole history on that.
But this was the moment when the French and the Americans were working together to try to fight this louse called Phylloxera that was ruining European vines, but also ruining the European vines in the United States.
And part of that was they eventually figured out grafting vitis vinifera onto American rootstock, which would then be almost immune, if you will, to phylloxera.And now the majority of the vines in the world are on American rootstock.Wow.
That's pretty wild.Just thinking about that's kind of wild.But before all that happened, people were desperately trying to create new grapes that could do well in American soil and American climates.
And the result would actually be wine that would be similar to the wines people are used to in Europe.
And this is all achieved through what is called vegetative propagation, which is a reproduction of a plant by asexual means, meaning the results are going to be identical to what you're propagating.
Whereas during what is called sexual propagation, anything can happen.Think you mutations like Pinot Noir, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris, all mutations of the same variety.
And because we're dealing with nature here, the excess will production of hybrids can also have mutations involved, but they don't often do nowadays.And there are so many hybrids out there.
And because these are all hybrids that were created throughout our history, we didn't have a complete or a complete understanding of it.Like we do now today, wine lovers, there's something happening in the wine world on a scientific level that could
I don't know, change the future.I don't know how long in the future this is going to take, but there are people that are developing hybrids all the time.
There's a specific lab in Germany in the false region that is producing what they call disease resistant varieties because now people are tracking it.So the different species of vitis, whether it's labrusca, vinifera, whatever, they contain genes,
that are naturally tolerant and resistant to a list of different problems.Salinity, downy mildew, powdery mildew, botrytis bunch rot, crown gall, Pierce's disease, nematodes, phylloxera, damage from winter elements.
All of these things can be somewhat prevented by mixing these genes and what's happening is the scientists are actively messing with these genes to create new hybrids that are extremely close to vitis vinifera.So here we are in 2024,
And the goal is still the goal of the European settlers that came to what is now the United States.Trying to make a hybrid grape that gives the vibe of what we fell in love with, European wine.Pretty crazy.
And there's a sustainability piece to this where these varieties are being developed so that agricultural chemicals do not need to be used.Some of these varieties that these scientists are creating
are said to be naturally resistant to the list of problems I just listed and the use of the chemicals to get rid of those problems.Some of these varieties will actually be naturally combatant.
And there are tests, there is proof, or there is documentation that some of these hybrids that are being developed do actually have vitis vinifera vibes to them. and they're being used to grow in kind of unlikely places.
So I guess what I'm saying here is there are recent hybrids.We're not talking about hybrids of the past that are hanging around in vineyards and they've been forgotten and we're trying to do something with them.
No, these are brand new hybrids with names like Rondo, Regent, Phoenix, and Orion.Those are pretty intense and awesome.You know, it's interesting.A lot of varieties, throughout Europe have changed names so many times and I find it just, it's so cool.
We're starting with these pretty intense words here.We're starting with Rondo, Regent, Phoenix, and Orion.And Rondo specifically is a red fleshed variety and they say it's remarkably like vitis vinifera.
It's a wine, it's light and fruity and it's being grown specifically in Denmark, England, the Netherlands, Sweden, Belgium, and Poland.How cool is that? Again, these are developed in Germany.There's one, the Regent one, I find very cool.
It is a cross between a Silvaner-Muller-Tragau hybrid.So that's an intraspecies cross that is crossed with Chambra-San.Do you see what's going on there?That is a white hybrid variety of two vinifera
grapes, so two genetic pieces of information from two European varieties being crossed with an American hybrid. That's just, that's so cool.And that's being grown in Germany and there's about 5,000 acres of it.
And the Phoenix hybrid is a, is a cross between a grape called Bacchus and a grape called Villa Blanc.I don't know anything about this one.
I mean, didn't have a lot of information about it, but what's really cool is I think it's a white wine grape because it says it's almost like a Saval Blanc vibe and it's being grown in England.
England is really popping off right now with their sparkling white wine.So it's a very interesting to see what they're doing there. And that's hybrids, but you're like, okay, that's so cool.Keith, where do I find hybrids then?
If you're so excited about them, Keith, where do you find them?Well, that's the thing is hybrids have slowly, did I already say this, steadily been kind of, they're,
They've been embraced for a few, like five, six years now, like deliberately trying to like make good wine from these grapes because people didn't understand them before.But it's hard because we're kind of still in it, but not really.
We're seeing wines made from hybrids mostly on the East Coast, because that's where the hybrids are concentrated mostly.That's where the history is, and that's where they were developed to be resistant to whatever, and we're seeing a lot of that.
the East coast doesn't have a lot of like very prominent wine regions except for New York state.
And now thankfully from all the work that people have been doing for 20 some odd years, Virginia and we're seeing when, when the hybrid thing started becoming popular, we started seeing winemakers in Vermont of all places, making wines from hybrids.
Um, But what we're seeing in Virginia is we're seeing this sort of this focus.We're seeing a focus.We're seeing experimentation.We're seeing experimentation guided by, by quality and guided by structure and in characteristics.And we're seeing,
people and winemakers in Virginia specifically blending hybrids with vitis vinifera.And they're making wines that are absolutely delicious from here, from there.
And the thing is, because Virginia is, it's sort of still up and coming, but it's here, but it's still up and coming.They don't have the distribution system that a larger state like California or Washington state have.
So it's not easy to find the hybrid grapes right now.This is why I think we're kind of moving into the future of this thing.And we're going to start seeing more and more as they become more and more accepted.
And as more and more people taste these wines, like specifically from Virginia, cause I'm telling you, I was, I'm old school, but with an open mind.And when I was coming up, hybrids were just kind of shunned.We didn't talk about hybrids.
Hybrids we talk about.But, It wasn't until I went to Virginia, a few, like, I don't know, I've been tasting and reviewing wines from Virginia since 2018.
And I think one of the first red wines I reviewed from Virginia was an Early Mountain Chambourcin.And I was like, whoa, whoa, this is delicious.
And I went down a rabbit hole and in 2021 or 22, I actually went down to see what was going on in Virginia.And I saw this.
And I tasted so many great wines in so many different forms, in so many different blends, like Chambers San and Vitus Vinifera in a blend or co-fermentation.It's just, they're doing the work and they're making the wines that are great.
So I guess what I'm saying is like, this is going to happen all over the country.And it's happening in California as well, but it's really happening on the East coast and specifically Virginia.
And you can buy these wines online, just got to pay for the shipping, but also go to Virginia, go check out all the wineries there, go see what they're doing.It's a very exciting time.And it's kind of a little
window into how we can move into the future.Because how cool would it be to have just all these different wines?Because if you think about it, Pinot Noir, Aligoté, Chardonnay, these are all results of an intra-specific
cross naturally during a time in world history when there was no technology to understand what was going on and monks were basically doing it.Now we have the ability to harness the science and understand it.
So it's a, it's cool, but go online and check out early mountain. Website early mountains of winemaker in Virginia check out the Commonwealth crush.
They're doing amazing things there But that'll kind of get you started on the whole hybrid thing, but so that's what hybrids are and If you see him around try him out like we're it's just new wine being made every day in the United States It's a new era of winemaking young winemakers doing new things It's awesome.
Okay, let's talk next week.Ciao VinePearKeith is my Insta.Rate and review this podcast wherever you get your podcasts from.It really helps get the word out there.And now for some totally awesome credits.
Wine 101 was produced, recorded, and edited by yours truly, Keith Beavers, at the VinePear headquarters in New York City. I want to give a big old shout out to co-founders Adam Teeter and Josh Mallon for creating Vinepair.
And I mean, big shout out to Danielle Grinberg, the art director of Vinepair for creating the most awesome logo for this podcast.Also Darby Seaside for the theme song.Listen to this.
And I want to thank the entire Vinepair staff for helping me learn something new every day.See you next week.
