In Australia, growers of Spanish albariño vines - who have been marketing this variety for some years - have been shocked to discover their vines are most likely a French variety called savagnin.
If tests prove there’s been a mix-up, the growers face the prospect of having to re-package and re-market their wines – an expensive exercise that might not prove worthwhile.
(See background stories on pages 13 and 26 of the June-July issue of Wine Technology in New Zealand magazine).
However, Gisborne-based Riversun Nursery has confirmed that the albariño vines it has imported are “the real McCoy”. (Pictured right: albarino grapes).
Geoff Thorpe, managing director of Riversun Nursery Ltd says his company has verified that its imports are true to type.
“This was established through DNA analysis performed at the world’s leading vine selection agency ENTAV-INRA® in France,” Mr Thorpe said.
“The confirmation will be welcome news to New Zealand growers who have been waiting for albariño selections to be released from Riversun’s private quarantine facility.
“In recent weeks, we have been flooded with calls from clients on our waiting list for albariño, who have expressed their concerns about the situation in Australia,” added Mr Thorpe. “I am delighted to announce that growers in New Zealand can rest assured that our albariño selections are the real deal.”
About albariño
Albariño is Spain’s most famous white wine grape, and in recent years has become a fashionable alternative offering on many top restaurants’ wine lists.
Known as ‘alvarinho’ in Portugal, the variety thrives in the maritime northern regions of both Spain and Portugal, producing fresh, aromatic wines. In recent years, growers in the New World have also produced wines, typically labelled under the Spanish name for the variety.
Last year, however, Jean-Michel Boursiquot (a French ampelographer, or grapevine identification expert) visited vineyards near Barossa and expressed doubts about the Australian plantings. Mr Boursiquot noted the vines appeared to be savagnin, a variety cultivated in the Jura region in eastern France, where it is used to produce the almost sherry-like vin jaune.
The body responsible for importing and distributing vine plant material into Australia, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), subsequently compared DNA samples and found that the cuttings they had been distributing as albariño were, in fact, savagnin.
Australian authorities then informed producers that their wines could no longer be labelled as albariño. The enforcement will have significant financial repercussions for an estimated dozen wineries in Australia, which now must test, repackage and re-label their wines.
New Zealand perspective
As part of an extensive vine importation programme, Riversun Nursery first brought in one selection of albariño, sourced from a Spanish grapegrowers association. That accession has been through quarantine and vines are now planted at the nursery’s source block.
Riversun subsequently imported three selections of alvarinho (the same variety) from a Portuguese vine selection company known as Plansel. (Plansel’s selections are registered with the Portuguese government).
The accessions from Plansel are expected to be released from the company’s quarantine facility later this year, after which they will undergo rapid propagation before vines are planted at the nursery’s source block.
Growers at the top of Riversun’s waiting list for albariño vines will receive limited quantities following grafting in 2010, Mr Thorpe said.
Testing procedure
1. Riversun Nursery imported Albariño from two sources – neither of which supplied the wrongly identified material to the CSIRO in Australia.
2. The Australian import originally assumed to be Albariño has in fact been identified as Savagnin – also known as Traminer (a pale-skinned cousin of the aromatic Gewürztraminer).
3. Linnaeus laboratory, a Riversun subsidiary, initially made DNA comparisons between imports of Albariño and Alvarinho versus the Traminer family, and found that they are not the same variety.
4. Linnaeus also conducted DNA comparisons of the imports of Albariño and Alvarinho and found them to be identical – in other words, Riversun knows that its imports are not in the traminer family and that accessions from two different countries are indeed the same variety.
5. Riversun has now received confirmation from the vine selection agency ENTAV-INRA® in France that its albariño and alvarinho imported vines are “true to type” for the albariño variety. The confirmation came after ENTAV-INRA® conducted DNA analysis from samples supplied by Riversun, which were then matched against the agency’s reference material.