bobgregg.com

When I heard about the theme of the latest Wine Blogging Wednesday assignment, I got excited: try wine made from some region’s “indigenous” grapes - veering off the beaten path big-six varietals and going native. Being a member of the Wine Century Club (currently over 140 varietals and counting), I’ve been meaning to get started writing something about what I drink. I love trying something new, even if the odds may not favor it being the next Côte-Rôtie. And I got really excited when I read Dr. Vino’s “bonus” assignment - try a native varietal right in the place where it’s grown. Well, it just so happened that my wife and I were planning a trip to Quebec - so I set to work trying to figure out just what the native varietals of Quebec might be.

Sure enough, there are plenty of wineries to choose from. For instance, just east of Quebec City is the beautiful Isle d’Orleans, which has several, all experimenting with cold-hearty varietals that can survive the harsh Québec winter. When the island was first discovered centuries ago, it was named “Isle de Bacchus”, due to the wild grapes growing all over it at the time. A little digging turned up a varietal I had never heard of before: Vandal Cliche. Supposedly it existed only in Quebec - good enough for my purposes. After planning a day-trip, I was all set.

And we did get to go to the island, and try some wines - in fact we had a lovely picnic at Vignoble de Ste. Petronille, complete with a couple of glasses of their white Vandal Cliche. But in drinking and talking with the staff there, I found two problems:

1. First, the wine just wasn’t that great. I mean, it wasn’t terrible - it was a decent quaff with our pate and crackers - but it wasn’t really distinctive either. Thin, light, and a little sour. My wife Sonnet, who usually has the better nose between the two of us, didn’t really find anything distinctive about it. To be fair, we tried a Vandal Cliche blend from Isle de Bacchus which was a bit better, with some citrus notes and a bit better acid. I almost bought a bottle of that. But…
2. …the bigger problem was that it turned out Vandal Cliche wasn’t a native varietal after all.

Or… was it?

It turns out to have been a hybrid developed by a local Quebecois, someone affiliated with a local university. Or possibly something developed by a local farmer, or even a “private breeder” - nobody was quite sure. Jancis Robinson’s Oxford Guide to Wines doesn’t even mention Vandal Cliche. The closest I’ve come to figuring out what a Vandal Cliche vine is is that it’s a “cross between Vandal 64 and Vandal 163 1984″ - not exactly the historic pedigree of, say, a Sagrantino or Sylvaner.

On the other hand, it’s pretty much a given that it sprang into existence in Quebec, has only been grown in Quebec, and only turned into wine in Quebec. So does that count as an indigenous grape, or not?

Another incident - we also spent some time at Marché du Vieux-Port, the Old Port Market, which is basically a farmers’ market featuring goodies from local farms and brewers. (And if you go to Quebec City some time, definitely go here - it’s a foodie paradise, with fresh maple butter, alcoholic ciders, and the most fragrant strawberries anywhere!) We saw a stand featuring wines from Vignoble Moulin du Petit Pré. After trying one of the wines (I can’t remember which one, I think their red blend), I asked the gentleman monitoring the stand to list the grapes used in the wine, and he rattled off a list of names in French. One in particular I couldn’t understand, so I asked him to write it down:

“Ripparia”

Now, that’s not the name of a grape - it actually refers to vitus riparia, the genus of grape vines used as rootstock for most of the grapes grown in North America. And that especially applies to all of the crazy list of hybrids being used in ultra-cold environments like Quebec. But apparently, this vineyard is actually blending riparia grapes into their wines. Remember the vines on the original Isle of Bacchus? Odds are, if they were surviving in that cold on their own, then those were probably riparia vines of one sort or another. So I guess, in a sense, that this was another indigenous varietal I got to try.

Unfortunately, it had something else in common - it also didn’t seem very good.

But maybe that’s okay. This is still a very early period in the Quebec wine industry, and there appears to be a lot of experimentation going on right now to figure out what is going to work. In addition to “normal” wines, there are local cassis ports, apple brandies, and unorthodox blends of wines being produced. Here’s a short list of varietals I tried on this trip:

• Eona
• Frontenac
• St. Croix
• Marechal-Foch
• Vidal
• Geisenheim
• Mitchurinetz
• Vandal Cliche
• Sabrevois

…among others. Odds are if you’ve tried half of these, then you’re probably from Quebec yourself.

There are also a lot of “other” wine products that are harder to categorize, but very good. We had a phenomenal apple-and-pear cider. Ste. Petronille had a blend of Vandal Cliche and brandy (!) that was quite good. I tried a supposedly regional Chardonnay named O₂ that was made, according to the guy pouring it, in a sherry style - complete with a layer of “flor” in the barrel. But the hit with us was Isle de Bacchus’s ice wine, all apricot and honey, favorably comparable to Sauternes.

To sum up - if you’re going to Quebec, be sure to go to the Old Port Market for a half-day. And rent a car and go to the Isle de Orleans for a full-day circuit around the island. Both are really worth your while, and beautiful experiences. And try as many of the local wineries and products (especially the ice wines!) as you can; they’ll broaden your horizons and your palate, and in places, exceed your expectations. But bring the right level of expectations - this isn’t the Rhone, or even Virginia, not yet. Maybe some day, though.

P.S. In my attempt to get “bonus points”, I thought I would go for the trifecta - I actually tried the Vandal Cliche grapes themselves, right in the vineyard. Not to disturb the vines themselves, I found some that had come off the vine on their own, and tried those. Did I mention that in Quebec, it’s still about a month until harvest time? Unripe grapes - every bit as yummy as you would imagine. Which is to say, not much. Don’t try this at home, kids.