FANCY a Chubby Ape? An intriguing ale brewed with Queensland bananas and Tasmanian walnuts. Or what about a glass of California Wild Ale’s Blueberry Pancakes Pastry Sour Beer? Not to your taste? Then maybe we can tempt you with a Coner 53’s Lemon Meringue Pie Gin or a Daylesford Pinot Noir Barrel Aged Cider? There is so much choice in the alcohol market it’s overwhelming and the steadfast, stalwart category of wine is well and truly under the cosh from competitors.
So, what can wine offer a jaded palate that looks down a wine list and sees the usual suspects – riesling, sauvignon blanc, semillon, chardonnay, pinot noir, merlot, shiraz and cabernet sauvignon? Well, there is plenty to try if you only scratch the surface and get out of the rut of ordering that shiraz or chardonnay.
Let us consider some alterative white wines that are available, either grown in Australia or imported from overseas. Italy has literally hundreds to choose from. Arneis from Piemonte is a wine with fresh acidity and peachy, pear, nutty almond aromas, and it can be matured in oak. You will find it grown in most Australian regions. Fiano is so popular that it could be about to jump out of the alternative grape variety category to join the mainstream grape varieties. It comes from Campania in southern Italy and Fiano di Avellino DOCG is the major region of production, which lies in-land from Napoli. The wine has aromas of citrus, stone fruit, beeswax and that typical Italian almond-meal character. On the palate they range from light and acid driven to fleshy and somewhat intense. Some producer’s oak mature their wines. Moving north, Garganega is the grape behind Soave from the Veneto region. It makes what you would describe as a non-aromatic wine but can be nicely textured on the palate. The trend in Australia is to make more textured wines so we are slowly producing more wines from Garganega. Vermentino is another savoury wine originating from Sardinia and Provence in France. Finally, we have Friulano, when treated seriously, it produces a textured and rich wine from Friuli Venezia Giulia. Try RiverBank Estate from the Swan in WA for the former, and the wonderful Grazia blend from Vinea Marson in Heathcote for the latter.
Grüner Veltliner deserve a mention and has been singlehandedly pushed into the limelight by Hahndorf Hill in the Adelaide Hills. It is Austria’s famous white grape variety, and the wine can have viognier-like pungency and structure with aromas running from mineral, wet stone, floral to orange peel and stone fruit depending on when it is picked.
There are a couple of interesting and aromatically driven wines from overseas that have yet to be commercialised in Australia. Torrontés from Argentina is a cross between Muscat of Alexandria and Criolla Chica (a local name for the Mission grape of California) and the best examples come from the Salta Province of northern Argentina. It has delightful floral aromatics. Moschofilero is from the Greek Peloponnese region south-west of Athens. It makes wines that have strong floral and musk aromas similar to gewurztraminer. Both grape varieties are drink early fresh styles and ideal for summer.
Turning to red wines there is even more choice. Gamay is not really an alternative grape variety, being the grape that makes Beaujolais. But Australian made wines are still hard to find. I’d encourage you to discover this red fruit driven, ‘cab-mac’ (semi-carbonic-maceration) wine, especially if it is given a touch of the pinot noir treatment with some supporting oak. Try Lyons Will from the Macedon Ranges.
Before we return to Italy for more varieties there are two emerging grapes from the Iberian Peninsula. Touriga Nacional is famous for leading the quintet of grapes that make Port in the Douro Valley of Portugal but is also capable of making great table wine. It produces deeply coloured robust wines with black fruits and some floral aromas. Stanton & Killeen use it in their Iberian Blend called The Prince. Graciano is from Spain’s Rioja region and is also known as Morrastel in France. It produces light to medium bodied wine, highly coloured, with fragrant cherry aromas. Try Mount Majura from the Canberra District.
Sagrantino is the famous tannic red wine of Umbria. Andrew Peace in the Swan Hill region of Victoria has the largest plantings of sagrantino in Australia and produces a rich blackberry and plum fruit driven wine with earthy and cedar notes which is suitably tannic on the palate. They also have the Austrian red grape zweigelt planted which makes a fruit driven wine full of cherries and marzipan. Hahndorf Hill also make zweigelt and their Austrian fetish continues with them planting and making a blaufränkisch. It makes a light, juicy style of red wine. Marlborough based winery Hans Herzog Estate have recently released New Zealand’s first blaufränkisch.
Brian Freeman in the Hilltops region of NSW uses corvina and rondinella grapes and partially dries a portion of them in a prune dehydrator before adding them back to the remainder in what is an Australian version of the Ripasso process. This is the technique used to produce a style of Valpolicella in Veneto. Freeman Secco Rondinella Corvina is a rich wine with plums, spices and savoury tannins.
More conventional winemaking is used in producing montepulciano and nero d’avola. These two southern Italian reds are fruit driven medium to full bodied wines. They both do well in warmer climates so are at home in Australia.
We will end our journey into alterative varieties on two more Italian reds that in their birthplace can produce top quality wines. Barbera stands second in importance behind nebbiolo in Piemonte. Barbera d’Asti DOCG and Barbera d’Alba DOC are the two major regions. Carlo Corino brought cuttings out from Italy in the 1970’s and planted them when he was winemaker at Montrose in Mudgee. Andrew Margan took cuttings of these and planted them at his Ceres Hill vineyard in 1998. His Margan Barbera has become their most popular red wine in the retail market, and they continuously sell out. The grape is renowned for its high acidity which is useful in hot regions as it can retain its freshness. Tannins levels are low and flavours include cherry, strawberries and herbs.
Done! Twenty wine alternatives to avoid drinking carrot infused gin churned in a milk vat and aged in the spleen of a grass-fed bison (I’ve made that one up).