Sun, Dec 28, 2014 page6

• Researchers work to preserve rare grapes

  • The Guardian
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  Twenty-five years ago, Fernando Martinez de Toda began to notice what he calls the “Coca-Cola-ization” of the wine market. Everywhere the agricultural engineer looked, he saw the same few grapes dominating the wine market: cabernet sauvignon, merlot and chardonnay.

  For Martinez de Toda, based at the University of La Rioja in one of Spain’s best-known wine regions, the problem hit particularly close to home. Vineyards across Spain were being restructured at a rapid pace.

  “People were taking out lesser-known varieties to put in French varieties or better-known Spanish ones like tempranillo,” he said.

  The changes around him were being reflected on a global scale, with about 70 percent of the world’s wines coming from just 30 grape varieties.

  He decided he would start stowing away rare indigenous grape varieties with the goal of preserving as much diversity as he could.

  “People called us crazy, but we were losing them without even knowing what we were losing,” he said.

  “We decided just to keep it somewhere and see if we could find a future use for it,” he added.

  Martinez de Toda’s quest was made easier by being based in La Rioja, one of the few wine-growing regions in the world that has not allowed non-native varieties to be planted.

  “There have always been people who argued that it would be better to plant cabernet sauvignon,” he said.

  Still, rare varieties of indigenous grapes were being pulled out to plant high-yielding tempranillo.

  On one level, the researcher’s concern was purely scientific.

  “With more diversity, the more tools we have to fight against problems like climate change,” he said.

  However, on a more emotional level, as a Spaniard whose family had spent generations making in wine in La Rioja, he saw the grape varieties as a living part of the region’s history.

  Today his project is one of several in Mediterranean countries working to conserve the genetic diversity of grape varieties in an attempt to ensure that people do not all end up all drinking the same thing. Helped by grape farmers in the region who call him when they spot unusual grapes in their vineyards, Martinez de Toda estimates that so far his project has managed to safeguard about 40 rare varieties of native grapes.

  In 2009 he and his team reintroduced five varieties to La Rioja, certifying them for wine production in La Rioja’s denominacion de origen.

  “They’re available to anyone who wants to use them,” he said, adding that it was one of the first times in the world that varieties had been authorized from a research project.

  The reintroduction proved a tough sell with farmers.

  “Everyone agrees that we should preserve these varieties in some way, but it’s another thing when we suggest making wine with them,” he said.

  That is where groups such as Wine Mosaic come in. Founded last year to promote Mediterranean wines made with local grape varieties, the idea came about during a trip to Turkey, Wine Mosaic cofounder Arnaud Daphy said.

  “They had these grape varieties that had been there for thousands of years and they were planting merlot, cabernet sauvignon and syrah. We said, it’s a shame. They have such heritage and they’re not using it,” Daphy said.

  Knowing that lectures would not get them very far in a profit-driven market, he said, “instead we tried to inspire people through other winemakers.”

  Through tasting events and symposiums, the French-based group is steadily building a community of winemakers in the Mediterranean willing to go beyond the comforts of traditional grape varieties.

  “It takes time from the moment you decide to test a new variety — some 10 to 20 years. You have to learn how to work with the grape and to find the potential, whether it works better in a warm or cold place. It’s a hard job,” Daphy said.
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