Grape Migrations

By Heidi Noroozy

 

For years I’ve been telling friends this story (usually over a nice glass of red wine): Gaspard de Stérimberg was a thirteenth-century crusader who took a wrong turn on his way to the Holy Land. He ended up in Shiraz, the Persian city known for its blooming gardens and lyrical poets—and for its wine. Gaspard took such a liking to the local vintage that he slipped a few grapevine cuttings into his saddlebags before returning to his home in France. There, he planted the cuttings, turned the mature fruit into a full-bodied wine, and named his new vintage after the city of its origin. A few centuries later, the Shiraz grapes went wandering again and put down roots in Australia.

Nice story, right? Too bad it’s not true.

In 1998, Dr. Carol Meredith, a researcher with the University of California at Davis, tested the DNA of grapevines and determined that the Shiraz variety is native to France and did not originate in Persia at all. Other details of the story don’t hold up under scrutiny, either. Chevalier Gaspard was a real knight, but there’s no evidence that he ever left France, let alone traveled to Jerusalem or Shiraz (which was never the target of a crusade anyway). Our valiant knight had joined the Albigensian Crusade against the Cathar heretics in the French region of Languedoc.

In another version of the story, the Greeks brought the Shiraz grape to France in 600 BC and planted the vines in their colony of Massilia (present-day Marseilles). Centuries later, Gaspard de Stérimberg encountered the vintage in this region on his way home from the crusades and transplanted some cuttings to his Rhône vineyards. There, he recovered from terrible wounds sustained in the fighting and lived out his days as a hermit—and presumably a gentleman vintner.

This story is more believable, for although Marseilles isn’t in the Languedoc region, it’s not far from it and the grapes could have easily migrated over the course of nearly two millennia. And the city of Shiraz has been part of a major wine-growing region for thousands of years—until the Islamic Republic banned alcohol in the 1980s. But the stickler this time is this: the wine grapes grown in Shiraz were white, while the present-day Shiraz grapes of Australia and France (where they’re called Syrah) are red.

So what is the true story? I doubt anyone will ever sort out these wrinkles in history. But the Shiraz mystery aside, Persia is likely the place where wine originated. Archaeologists uncovered the earliest evidence of winemaking in the residue clinging to 7,000-year-old pottery shards at Hajji Firuz Tepe, an excavation site in the Zagros Mountains of northwestern Iran.

Iranians have another story about the origins of wine: The legendary King Jamshid was fond of grapes. He filled his castle cellars with the fruit so that it could be brought to his table whenever he felt a craving coming on. One day, he sent two servants to fetch a basket of grapes, and when they failed to return, he went to see what was taking so long. He found the men collapsed on the floor, overcome by the fumes from a barrel of bruised and fermenting grapes. The king decided the grapes had turned poisonous and warned everyone to avoid them.

Later, one of Jamshid’s mistresses was feeling sad and neglected and decided to kill herself by drinking the liquid left by the poisoned grapes. But instead of dying, the woman soon felt elated and climbed the cellar steps singing and dancing. The king realized that this miraculous juice had the power to turn despair into joy. It’s probably a good thing he never asked her how she felt the next morning when the hangover hit, or perhaps we wouldn’t have wine today.

This story brings us back to Shiraz because Jamshid is believed to have lived in the site that later became Persepolis, the palace of the Achaemenid rulers, which lies just an hour’s drive from present-day Shiraz. Even today, Iranians refer to Persepolis as “Takht-e Jamshid,” which means the “Throne of Jamshid.”

Science may have proven that the Shiraz grape has a French accent rather than a Persian one and that winemaking originated in the Zagros Mountains and not in King Jamshid’s cellar, but I still prefer the legends. I’ll happily lift a glass to old Gaspard, the French hermit, as I picture him wandering among his vines, or to King Jamshid on his throne at Persepolis, sipping a white Shiraz.

Salamati!

Wine Flows from the Fountains

Game at Marostica chess festival

By Patricia Winton

Choosing a topic for this week’s theme was an almost insurmountable task for me. Italy loves festivals. Every church and every town has a patron saint (except Rome, which has two), and each of these is celebrated with a festival. There are highly specialized festivals like the Battle of the Oranges in Ivrea (where people throw oranges at each other) or the Chess Festival of Marostica (where people and horses represent chess pieces on a giant board).

Then there are the festivals celebrating food. Frequently these focus on local dishes like polenta or gnocchi. Or they can highlight the harvest of local delicacies like chestnuts or porcini. One joyous harvest festival is the Sagra dell’uva di Marino (the Marino grape festival).

Marino lies in the Castelli, the Alban hills just south of Rome. The Castelli have been a favorite summer retreat from Rome’s oppressive summer heat since ancient times. Even the Pope has a summer home in the nearby Castel Gandolfo. These hills are wrapped in vines producing a good white wine.

Celebrated the first weekend in October, the Marino grape festival combines the secular with the religious, as do most Italian sagre (festivals). Its origins date back to October 7, 1571, when Marino native Marcantonio Colonna led forces that defeated the Turks in the Battle of Lepanto, effectively protecting the Italian peninsula from an Ottoman invasion.

The Madonna del Rosario and the Fraternity

This battle pitted Christian states against Muslim ones, and the Christian warriors were under the protection of the Madonna del Rosario (rosary). When Marcantonio debarked in Gaeta following the battle, he went to the cathedral to give thanks to the Madonna for the victory. Pope Pius V proclaimed the Madonna del Rosario to be the protector of all within his domain and ordered a celebration in her honor on October 7. The religious side of Marino’s festival dates from that time. When Marcantonio returned to Marino in November, the city honored him with a great dinner, a tradition that continues.

The secular side began much later, in 1925, when savvy business leaders saw the potential of tacking on a celebration of the local wine to the existing religious holiday which, as fate would have it, coincides with the grape harvest.

Today, the festival lasts four or five days encompassing the first weekend in October. The event officially opens on Saturday evening around 6 p.m. with 16th century costumed figures parading along the city’s main streets, accompanied by period music and flag twirlers. Marcantonio’s triumphant return is re-enacted with the reading of a proclamation giving him keys to the city, and he in turn reads one announcing the victory at Lepanto.

A wine fountain decorated with grapes

On Sunday, all the fountains in Marino flow with wine instead of water, and one can fill a plastic cup (or even a small water bottle) with wine from the fountains. A few years ago, a glitch in the waterworks sent plain water into the fountains and wine into the faucets of surrounding homes. People ran to their windows shouting, “It’s a miracle. The water has turned into wine.” A red-faced mayor soon got that sorted, but the “Miracle of Marino” lives in legend.

Sunday morning, the local bishop celebrates mass at the cathedral with the mayor (wearing the traditional tri-color sash), military leaders (in dress uniform), and representatives from nearby towns and Marino’s sister-cities as prominent worshipers. Following the mass, a procession with the Fraternity of the Holiest Rosary bearing a statue of the Madonna, accompanied by the dignitaries at the mass, walks through the town’s main streets.

As the festival draws to a close, people dance in the street, munch a local sandwich made from porchetta (roast pig, a Castelli specialty), and, of course, drink wine. Like most other festivals in Italy, it all ends with fireworks at midnight.

Porchetta sandwiches

I blog each Monday at Italian Intrigues. I hope you’ll drop by and join the conversation.

Wine's New Wave

In today’s eco-conscious world, even wines compete for their planet-friendly status and a pure taste unadulterated by pesticides, fertilizers, and sulfates. Just like all things organic, biodynamic wine production is a hot new trend.

Biodynamic farming is as different from organic as vegetarian cuisine is different from its vegan cousin.

In the 1920s, in response to German farmers’ concern about the future of food production, Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner developed a lecture series on an innovative way of looking at agriculture. He insisted that a farm or a vineyard should be seen as an organism, and therefore should be a self-nourishing system. According to Steiner, if certain crops were dying or attacked by a disease, it was a symptom of problems in the whole organism. It couldn’t be effectively treated by the use of outside materials, but had to be eliminated by using the farm’s own resources.

That may not sound utterly radical in today’s day and age. Yet, what truly sets biodynamics apart from organic or sustainable method is its belief that farming can be attuned to the spiritual forces of nature. According to Steiner’s theory, a vineyard’s health encompasses both the earth and the universe – that is plants, flowers, insects, sun, stars, and so on. Modern biodynamic vineyards take into account the cycles of the moon for planting and spraying vines, as well as strict preparations that include burying manure in a cow’s horn, mixing it to the right consistency by hand, and applying it on a specific date and time. They also follow the dynamizing approach, which is a process of stirring organic solutions for a specific time and in a certain direction before spraying it on the vines.

Sounds like a hard-to-believe voodoo system no one has time for in today’s rush, doesn’t it?

In the heart of Vienna, Austria, up in the hills yet still within the city ring, there lies Weinbau Hajszan, a biodynamic winery operated by Stephan Hajszan and his wife. The Hajszans went biodynamic in 2006 and believe their vinery’s mission is to re-establish the balance between man and nature. They use teas and other homeopathic preparations to strengthen the immunity of the wine and skip using auxiliaries and additives. They mix compost into the soil exactly when it is supposed to be deposited and follow the strict guidelines once laid out by their very own Rudolf Steiner. I didn’t see them utter any spells as they popped their bottles at the tasting, but I’m sure that if Steiner’s method called for it, they would do it too. They admit it takes a lot of work, but believe the results are well worth it.

The Hajszans specialize in whites and rosé, which is very popular in Vienna, and they produce 30,000 to 50,000 bottles of wine annually. In sampling some of their wines, I found their Rosé 2009 to be an intense bouquet of raspberry and strawberry, and their Gemischter Satz (a mix of different wines) had elements of apple and peach. As with traditional wineries, their classic whites ferment better in steel tanks while certain specialty wines known for their mineral flavor must mature inside large oak casks.

Do biodynamic wines taste any better? Critics are still arguing about it and probably will be for years – until some other new hot trend comes along. It’s hard to tell. To instigate a proper comparison, one would have to grow, harvest, and ferment the regular and biodynamic crops side by side in the same region. Perhaps one day, some eco-conscious wine connoisseur will set off to investigate.

As to the health and environmental value of biodynamic farming, I am sure it’s best for both, man and planet.

Indian Wine Country

Fifteen years ago, I ordered an expensive glass of wine in a trendy Mumbai restaurant. There were two choices, and the waiter looked slightly puzzled when I asked for a recommendation. I understood why when he brought out the pricier of the two. It tasted exactly like cough syrup. The concentrated kind. Probably cherry flavored. (Okay, I’m exaggerating, but you know that hideous taste!) I soon discovered, first hand, that the only wine worth drinking in the metropolis was port wine from the island state of Goa, though port is more of an aperitif.

It’s said that winemaking in India has a long history, dating back to the 4^th century BC, when grapevines from Persia were introduced in the fertile soils of the Indus Valley. In Vedic times, the Aryans were known for indulging in intoxicating drinks, wine perhaps one of them. Winemaking may not have flourished much in India after that but it did continue for centuries to some degree, enjoyed by kings and poets. In more recent history, the British and Portuguese colonizers on the subcontinent encouraged winemaking before a pest outbreak and new social and religious mores virtually wiped it out in the late 19^th century. No wonder I was drinking cough syrup.

But my, how things have changed. With the rapid growth in both population and affluence of the country’s middle class over the past decade, India is now one of the world’s fastest growing markets for wine, spirits, and many other luxury items. And exorbitant import duties and stringent regulations have given rise to dozens of domestic labels for beer, wine, whiskey, and other spirits. A number of these young products even receive high marks for quality, some winning international awards.

Whiskey is still king in this country (a remnant of its English colonial past), and India remains the largest whiskey market in the world. But wine is becoming the country’s new darling, with an industry valued at around $400 million and skyrocketing consumption (growing at a rate of 20% to 30% a year), particularly among women and young urban professionals. That I know of, there’s never been much social pressure on women not to drink alcohol, but it seemed that previous generations of Indian women weren't too wowed by the limited options of hard liquor or beer. That's obviously changing.

Riding on the wave of this new trend, the hospitality and culinary industries are also elevating the status of wine in India, perhaps for more than one reason. In the next few months, a friend of ours is launching an upscale seafood restaurant in the south, with plans to throw a wine party on opening night and offer wine pairings with different menu specialties going forward. Such trends are still relatively new to Indian restaurants, and while they are also nifty ideas, the original reason for this restaurateur’s decision stemmed from the exorbitant cost of getting a liquor license. Because the excise department in some metro areas have reached the upper limit of how many licenses they can give out, some business owners closing shop get away with charging up to 60 lakh rupees (roughly US$120,000) to sell them to new entrepreneurs. Since wine and beer licenses come much cheaper, my friend opted for the more affordable wine license.

Meanwhile, local vineyards are “cropping” up all across the country, the most successful ones concentrated in the hilly regions of western and southern states, where the more temperate climates and rich soils are most hospitable. (Farther north can be too arid, and farther east, too hot and humid.) Plus planting vineyards on slopes at higher altitudes keeps temperatures down and offers a measure of protection from the wind.

The great majority of Indian vineyards are concentrated in and around Nasik, in the southwestern state of Maharashtra (of which Mumbai is the capital), with the rest scattered across the southern states of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. 

Sommelier D.N. Raju says about four major vineyards supply most of the wine market (most successful are Sula, based in Maharashtra, and Grover in Karnataka), plus about 20 small ones and 10 emerging ones, including his own, Soma Vineyards. Located just outside the Bangalore (Karnataka) metro area, Soma supplies mainly Shiraz, also known as Syrah, and Sauvignon Blanc grapes to popular domestic labels such as Grover and is now working to produce grapes for its own boutique line. But Raju has also developed Soma as an exclusive, high-end travel destination, one to rival those found in France and California. It’s uniquely Indian, though, with coconut and teak trees surrounding its 90 acres of hilly vineyards nestled on the banks of a scenic lake. 

Soma Vineyards near Bangalore is fairly new but already attracting
enthusiastic visitors from Australia to Europe as a vacation spot.

Overall, it’s a wonder to watch the Indian wine renaissance, with its new boutique shops, magazines, clubs and “societies,” tasting classes, festivals, even an academy … all exciting offshoots piggybacking on this new booming industry.

Does this surprise you? It does me, since I rarely if ever hear about wines from any Asian country this side of the Atlantic. Have you? If so, any labels you can recommend the rest of us?

Something to Wine About

Vineyard in the Mendoza region. Photo by Mitsuhirato.

When people ask me what I liked most about living in Mendoza, Argentina, the words that tumble from my mouth are “wine, mountains, and food”. Of course, my second sentence contains “hot men” but that’s a whole other story.

My first introduction to red wine came in the form of a spritzer in a restaurant in Mendoza. The Argentines are quite fond of adding soda water and ice to red wine in the summer, and as a non-red wine drinker, this combo led to my appreciation of a fine red. No doubt the wine connoisseurs reading this will have fallen off their chairs by now, but I promise you I eventually dropped the soda water and now drink the pure stuff. 

For me to have survived in social circles in Mendoza, one of Argentina’s main wine-producing regions, I had to learn to drink red—and appreciate it. As part of my training, I had to put in many hours at the vineyards, sitting with friends, drinking vino and staring at the snow-capped peaks of the Andes. Oh, the things I’ve done to integrate within a culture.

Jesuit missionaries in Latin America officially planted the first vineyard in Latin America in 1557. The missionaries built irrigation dams and canals so they could capture water from the melting glaciers. The combination of fresh mountain water and arid climate proved a perfect combination and the crops flourished. French cuttings were imported and, as a result, the wine from Chile and Argentina still contain French ancestry. 

The Jesuits' original plan of producing wine for their Catholic masses changed as the population in Latin America expanded. The churches lost their monopoly on vineyard ownership, and the public had access to grape growing and put their own slant on wine production. Latin America exported wine to Spain, where it became so popular it threatened to crush the Spanish wine industry. The Spanish government ruled a lot of Latin America, so it ordered the vineyards there to be uprooted. For the handful of people who refused to bow down to the Spanish, they had to pay hefty taxes for the privilege. Luckily, they did so because those are the crops that escaped destruction and expanded once the Spanish lost their stronghold.

A lot of fuss is made about Chile and Argentina competing against each other in everything from football to wine. I can’t see the point, especially since their wines are quite different. In Chile, most vineyards are set in fertile valleys, and rely on the moist air from the Pacific Ocean to grow their crops. Varieties produced in Chile are Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Riesling, Cabernet, Sauvignon Blanc, Merlot, Carmenére, Syrah, and Pinot Noir.

The arid, sunny climate of the Argentine Andes is better suited to producing red wine. Some of Argentina’s most important red varieties are Bonarda, Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec, Merlot, Sangiovese, Syrah, and Tempranillo. But the wine isn’t limited to just red. Torrontes has gained popularity as a high-quality Argentine white. 

Vineyard, Mendoza region. Photo by Fainmans.

I’m not a wine expert by any means, but I can surely appreciate a good glass of vino when it comes along. I grew up in a country with a reputation for producing fine wine, so there’s no surprise I ended up living in a few countries where the grapes are not just for eating. What did surprise me when I first arrived in South America is that wine production isn’t limited to just Chile and Argentina. I’ve had some amazing wine from Peru, Bolivia, Uruguay, and Brazil. And I certainly couldn’t write this post with authority if I hadn’t sampled some of the wines from those countries.

As with any burgeoning industry, things change. It’s hard to keep up with new labels and varieties being produced, so the only way to keep on top of it, as far as I’m concerned, is to drag myself back to South America and conduct my own wine-tour.

How about you? Have you sampled any South American wine, and if so, what did you think?

Grape Migrations

Prince Entertained on a Terrace
from "Divan" by Hafez

For years I’ve been telling friends this story (usually over a nice glass of red wine): Gaspard de Stérimberg was a thirteenth-century crusader who took a wrong turn on his way to the Holy Land. He ended up in Shiraz, the Persian city known for its blooming gardens and lyrical poets—and for its wine. Gaspard took such a liking to the local vintage that he slipped a few grapevine cuttings into his saddlebags before returning to his home in France. There, he planted the cuttings, turned the mature fruit into a full-bodied wine, and named his new vintage after the city of its origin. A few centuries later, the Shiraz grapes went wandering again and put down roots in Australia.

Nice story, right? Too bad it’s not true.

In 1998, Dr. Carol Meredith, a researcher with the University of California at Davis, tested the DNA of grapevines and determined that the Shiraz variety is native to France and did not originate in Persia at all. Other details of the story don’t hold up under scrutiny, either. Chevalier Gaspard was a real knight, but there’s no evidence that he ever left France, let alone traveled to Jerusalem or Shiraz (which was never the target of a crusade anyway). Our valiant knight had joined the Albigensian Crusade against the Cathar heretics in the French region of Languedoc.

In another version of the story, the Greeks brought the Shiraz grape to France in 600 BC and planted the vines in their colony of Massilia (present-day Marseilles). Centuries later, Gaspard de Stérimberg encountered the vintage in this region on his way home from the crusades and transplanted some cuttings to his Rhône vineyards. There, he recovered from terrible wounds sustained in the fighting and lived out his days as a hermit—and presumably a gentleman vintner.

This story is more believable, for although Marseilles isn’t in the Languedoc region, it’s not far from it and the grapes could have easily migrated over the course of nearly two millennia. And the city of Shiraz has been part of a major wine-growing region for thousands of years—until the Islamic Republic banned alcohol in the 1980s. But the stickler this time is this: the wine grapes grown in Shiraz were white, while the present-day Shiraz grapes of Australia and France (where they’re called Syrah) are red.

So what is the true story? I doubt anyone will ever sort out these wrinkles in history. But the Shiraz mystery aside, Persia is likely the place where wine originated. Archaeologists uncovered the earliest evidence of winemaking in the residue clinging to 7,000-year-old pottery shards at Hajji Firuz Tepe, an excavation site in the Zagros Mountains of northwestern Iran.

Photo by Sarah Stierch

Iranians have another story about the origins of wine: The legendary King Jamshid was fond of grapes. He filled his castle cellars with the fruit so that it could be brought to his table whenever he felt a craving coming on. One day, he sent two servants to fetch a basket of grapes, and when they failed to return, he went to see what was taking so long. He found the men collapsed on the floor, overcome by the fumes from a barrel of bruised and fermenting grapes. The king decided the grapes had turned poisonous and warned everyone to avoid them.

Later, one of Jamshid’s mistresses was feeling sad and neglected and decided to kill herself by drinking the liquid left by the poisoned grapes. But instead of dying, the woman soon felt elated and climbed the cellar steps singing and dancing. The king realized that this miraculous juice had the power to turn despair into joy. It’s probably a good thing he never asked her how she felt the next morning when the hangover hit, or perhaps we wouldn’t have wine today.

This story brings us back to Shiraz because Jamshid is believed to have lived in the site that later became Persepolis, the palace of the Achaemenid rulers, which lies just an hour’s drive from present-day Shiraz. Even today, Iranians refer to Persepolis as “Takht-e Jamshid,” which means the “Throne of Jamshid.”

Science may have proven that the Shiraz grape has a French accent rather than a Persian one and that winemaking originated in the Zagros Mountains and not in King Jamshid’s cellar, but I still prefer the legends. I’ll happily lift a glass to old Gaspard, the French hermit, as I picture him wandering among his vines, or to King Jamshid on his throne at Persepolis, sipping a white Shiraz.

Salamati!