A publicist pitched me a story a few years ago about the hottest new wine trend: red blends. “You mean bordeaux?” I scoffed. The Bordelais have been blending reds for centuries. So have winemakers in the Rhône Valley and the Chianti district of Tuscany.
But while blending isn’t new, it isn’t a universal practice. Pinot noir and chardonnay typically are not blended with other grapes, except in sparkling wines such as champagne. Nebbiolo stands alone in barolo. In Tuscany, sangiovese is the main part of a blend in traditional chianti, but it flies solo in Brunello di Montalcino and Vino Nobile di Montepulciano. Practices developed over centuries still guide winemaking today. And history doesn’t give us a definitive direction to blend or not, so winemakers in most places are free to decide for themselves.
The five traditional bordeaux red grapes — cabernet sauvignon, merlot, cabernet franc, petit verdot and malbec — complement one another in flavor, tannin and acidity. They also provide a hedge against climate. Merlot ripens early, and is reliable in cool years when cabernet sauvignon may struggle to ripen before autumn rains. Climate change is making Bordeaux vintners rethink merlot’s role as vintages trend hotter.
In Virginia, where the humid maritime climate is often compared to Bordeaux’s, many winemakers follow that classic model. Rutger de Vink, of RdV Vineyards in Delaplane, likens a blend to an artist mixing colors on a palette. Blending is a fine art for RdV — de Vink hires famed Bordeaux consultant Eric Boissenot to blend RdV’s wines, called Lost Mountain and Rendezvous.
“Merlot is round, petit verdot adds color, cabernet franc brings freshness, and cabernet sauvignon contributes structure,” de Vink says. “The blend always comes together into a better wine than the individual lots. The idea is to craft the best expression from that hillside for that year.”
Not everyone blends, however. Jake Busching, winemaker at Hark Vineyards in Earlysville, Va., who has his own label, Jake Busching Wines, likes to highlight the different characteristics of each grape variety.
“When I start a new project, I want to make varietal wines to see what the estate is offering me,” Busching says. “You don’t want the wines to all taste alike, so you want to keep some distinction between the varietals. The more petit verdot you spread around to add color or acid, the closer the wines get in flavor and profile.” Having recently tasted Busching’s delicious and soulful 2019 cabernet franc from Hark Vineyards, I’m not inclined to quibble with his approach.
“I am beginning to play around with blending white wines,” Busching says. He has discussed with fellow winemakers on the Monticello Wine Trail a proposal to craft a regional white blend based on grapes that do well in Central Virginia. That could be a heady brew of viognier, petit manseng, sauvignon blanc and other grapes.
Luca Paschina has been thinking along similar lines at Barboursville Vineyards. Paschina, now in his 31st year heading the winery, created Octagon in 1998 as Barboursville’s signature wine. A bordeaux-style blend based on merlot, Octagon has become Virginia’s leading red wine.
For several years, Paschina has expressed a desire to craft a white wine complement to Octagon. Next month, Barboursville will release Nascent 2018, a blend primarily of viognier with vermentino and falanghina. It will be a uniquely Barboursville wine — viognier is widely grown in Virginia, but vermentino has not caught on despite Barboursville’s success with it. The winery’s young plantings of falanghina are the first of this Italian variety in Virginia.
“I wanted to show that Virginia can make age-worthy white wines of distinction,” Paschina said in early August at a luncheon for wine and travel writers, where he poured the Nascent as a sneak peek before its September release. Aged nearly three years, first in large Austrian oak barrels, then stainless steel tanks and finally in bottle, the wine was fresh and lively, showing maturity more than exuberance. It should be fascinating to taste for years to come.
Nascent means beginning, with signs of potential. In making this blend, Paschina and his team did not just honor tradition, they created a bright new future.
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