Ep 524: The Top 12 Grapes Saved from the Brink of Extinction

Wine for Normal People

Alcohol, Lifestyle, Arts, Education, Food, Wine, Dining, Grapes

4.6 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 18 June 2024

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

There are a seemingly endless number of wines made from grapes from all over. But, surprisingly, what remains in the world is just a fraction of what once existed. Before downy mildew, powdery mildew, phylloxera, and the World Wars of the 20^th century hit the shores of Europe, destroying vineyards of native vines, there were likely hundreds of thousands of grape varieties with millions of clones. The biodiversity and possibilities for great wine were even greater than they are today.

But there is a movement afoot to revive grape varieties that are nearly extinct. It started in Portugal, spread to Spain and Italy, and now is a badge of pride for regions that are able to bring these grapes back from the brink.

In this show I cover 12 grapes with interesting stories of near extinction and revival:

Italy

Whites: Arneis - (Bianchetta), Timorasso, Nascetta, Fiano

Red: Schioppettino

Greece: Malagousia

Spain

Whites: Godello, Verdejo

Red: Graciano

Photo: Godello Source: Food and Wine From Spain

France

White: Viognier

Reds: Carménère, Tibouren

There are so many other grapes out there that have been saved, but these are the stories I find most interesting. Enjoy!

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Wine for Normal People, the Podcasts for People who like Wine for Normal People,
0:09.8	the podcast for people who like wine, but not the snobbery that goes with it.
0:13.2	I'm your host Elizabeth Schneider author of the Wine for Normal People Book and
0:19.2	certified wine dork. This podcast is sponsored by Wine Access.
0:25.0	Wine Access.com slash normal is how you can join the Wine Access Wine for
0:28.9	Normal People Wine Club and not miss out on the upcoming shipment of all Serge-Durewines.
0:35.0	If you are a loyal podcast listener, you know Serge-Durek is a good friend of mine and a
0:39.8	French wine importer and you can only get his wines in a limited part of the United States.
0:44.7	And this shipment draws on all of his wines, all the wines that you hear about on the show and
0:49.5	that you want, you can get them now if you go to wine access.com slash normal listen in the middle of the show for more details
0:57.0	I've been wanted to do this podcast for a while because I feel like every time I do the classes there's some grape especially on the
1:05.3	regional classes that came back from the brink of extinction. I think it's kind of
1:11.0	interesting to probe into some of these.
1:13.7	Now obviously I can't do every grape that was almost extinct and some of these grapes are so
1:19.3	obscure that I decided not to include them and I do feel bad that there aren't Sicilian
1:25.4	grapes on this list and that is mainly because the big ones that are actually
1:30.4	available they didn't rise to the level of extinction like some of these
1:34.7	others so I did not include the Sicilian grapes but of course because Italy has
1:39.3	more native grapes than anyone else there's going to be a few more Italian grapes on this list, but
1:44.4	Spain and France Playfact or Greece. So we'll do a few and then of course if you
1:49.5	guys want me to do this show again and look into more grapes that came back from the edge of extinction.
1:56.3	You can let me know and I will do another show on this because I think it is a really interesting
	...

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