White tempranillo: mutation or technique?
I had recently seen a press release for the Pago del Vicario winery on the release of their second vintage of a White Tempranillo wine. This press release brought to mind the news last year from La Rioja D.O.C. that one of the varieties now approved for white wines is the White Tempranillo.
So what's happening? Is White Tempranillo a grape variety or a technique? The answer is ...both. Pago del Vicario and La Rioja are using the same words to describe two different things!
The White Tempranillo wine from Pago del Vicario is created in the winery using red Tempranillo grapes in a "blanc de noir" style. This style, also used in making white cava and champagne from Pinot Noir, involves preventing contact of the crushed grape 'must' with the grape skins, where the red color comes from.
The White Tempranillo grape is a mutation discovered in 1988 in La Rioja by viticulturalist Jesus Galilea. The mutation is now being grown by two wineries there, but, in so far has I can tell, and has yet to be released commercially (under Rioja regulations a 100% White Tempranillo is not allowed). One of the wineries experimenting with the new grape is DinastÃa Vivanco. In a story published in Decanter, their project involves a planting of 100 rows of vines, which are now four years old. Winery Director Rafael Vivanco said that White Tempranillo is "very promising... quite aromatic."
Labels: Grape varieties, Wineries
posted by Steven Tolliver 9:28 AM
2 Comments:
Hi Steven!
I work for Dinastia Vivanco in the UK (you and I met at your Alimentaria seminar) and I thought I'd leave you some thoughts on this subject.
Firstly, I'm afraid to say that Decanter was a little generous with their statistics and we have around 100 vines planted, not 100 rows, so production is still quite limited.
Rafael Vivanco does have high hopes for this variety, but there are many years, and many trials, to go before it is likely to go into consumer bottlings. This is one of several innovations Dinastia Vivanco is looking at currently.
Also, the EU is clamping down heavily on the term "White" attached to red varieties made without skin contact. There was a big issue (in the UK at least) with the terms "White Zinfandel" and "White Grenache" as certainly the former does not exist as a recognised variety and cannot therefore appear as the stated variety on a label.
I suspect that the pago del vicario type situation could also fall foul of such a strict interpretation of the EU rules, but I am not au fait with their bottling nor the status of White Tempranillo as an EU recognised variety, so this may not yet be the case.
As you say, this is confusing for the average consumer, but in either case represents interesting times for those looking at what innovations are happening in Spain today.
Hi Robert,
Thanks for your comments and correction on the details of the Dinastia plantings of White Tempranillo.
To clarify on Pago del Vicario, the term they use for their wine is "Blanco de Tempranillo", so this should keep them out of trouble with the EU labeling police.
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