A Not-Famous Red Wine, Grolleau in Anjou and Touraine

With Some Broader Wine Questions and Tentative Thoughts

GRAPE VARIETIES ARE WONDERFULLY matched to their famous terroirs, by definition you might say, or the wines themselves wouldn’t be famous. The variety and the place each bring out the best in the other. Some matches took place much sooner than others. In Burgundy with Pinot Noir it happened by the 1300s; in the Médoc of Bordeaux, Cabernet Sauvignon became dominant only in the early 20th century. Often, we don’t have much idea when a match happened, and we may know even less about when a variety came into being. Now the warming climate is ripening grapes sooner and pushing them to higher levels of ripeness; tactics are being altered and earlier harvests are the norm. The higher temperatures and the likelihood of less rainfall, along with the effects on taste, pose questions about which varieties can succeed in the future. In the second half of the 19th century, when the phylloxera aphid arrived from North America and began to destroy Europe’s vineyards, not every variety was saved by being grafted onto a resistant North American rootstock (when that solution was found). There was more focus on the best grapes, and many varieties were lost. But in every old wine region, besides one or more well-known varieties, there are others that are less valuable but suit different locations or produce different wines for different markets or simply linger on in a small way from long ago (a few have been rediscovered). Some varieties that used to be considered of limited value are being looked at again. In Anjou, there is the red grape Grolleau. Exceptionally, including in export, you find bottles of 100 percent Grolleau.