It’s a fringe movement so far, but hybrids have proven they can make good wine and may be better able to withstand climate change and disease.
Matt Niess is trying to do something different.
Unlike almost every other grower and winemaker in California, Niess, the proprietor of North American Press in Sonoma County, is focusing squarely on hybrid grapes, crosses between Vitis vinifera, the species that accounts for all the best-known wine grapes, and various grape species native to North America.
In a state known for its great cabernet sauvignons, chardonnays and pinot noirs, and for how easily vinifera grapes have grown in its sunny climate, Niess’ engagement with hybrids would seem to place him on the edge of irrelevancy. Yet the reverse is true. Niess is in the vanguard of a growing interest in hybrids throughout the wine-producing world.
The climate crisis has affected wine regions with a speed and force beyond what anybody had predicted. In addition to global warming, wine regions have experienced more frequent catastrophic weather events, like hail, drought and spring frosts, along with devastating bouts with fungal diseases and insect infestations.
Vinifera grapes are particularly susceptible to these maladies and sometimes require steps that many of the best farmers are desperate to avoid, like spraying with synthetic herbicides and systemic fungicides, among other poisons. And so, grape-growers across the wine-producing world are beginning to examine the possibilities of hybrid grapes, which often have far greater resistance to these diseases and don’t require the same sort of intensive chemical crutches.
And wholly aside from the climatic rationale for investigating the potential of hybrid grapes, Niess has cultural reasons for working with varieties like catawba and lenoir, which have been grown in the United States for many years.
“I’m drawn to preserving the diversity of American grapes and their agricultural history,” he said. “It’s cool being in North America, using North American grapes.”
To say hybrids have hit the mainstream would be an exaggeration. It’s just scattered farmers here and there, in France, Germany, New Zealand and Virginia, for example, who are joining growers in regions like Vermont, the Midwest and parts of Canada, where the weather, either too hot and humid or too cold, required alternatives to vinifera grapes. But even the world’s most historic wine regions, like Champagne and Burgundy, are beginning tentative experiments with hybrids in their effort to adapt to the changing climate.
In Beaujolais, Pierre Cotton and Marine Bonnet of Bonnet-Cotton are making an excellent easy-drinking rosé, Piscine Olympique, blending two hybrids, muscaris and souvignier gris with gamay. Azores Wine Co makes a terrific red with the isabella grape.
Valentin Morel, a natural winemaker in the Jura, is doing wonderful things with a half dozen different hybrids in addition to the traditional grapes of the region, while in Germany, 2Naturkinder has made excellent wines with regent, an older hybrid.
And in San Francisco, Christopher Renfro, founder of the Two Eighty Project, which grows pinot noir vines in Alemany Farm, a public garden between a housing project and a highway, is planning on replacing the pinot with cuttings of hybrids from Filoli Garden’s collection of historic plants.
“All the varieties seem resistant to powdery mildew,” he said of the hybrids. “This is a huge reason why I want them grafted over at Alemany.”
Anybody working with hybrids must overcome the stigma attached to the grapes. For years, the wines made from hybrids and grapes native to North America were roundly derided as simple, uninteresting or just plain bad, even as scattered wineries in the Midwest and upstate New York were making very good wines. Yet it was assumed by many that the grapes were not capable of making good wine.
It was partly a self-fulfilling prophecy. Hybrids were treated by many as workhorses. They were often farmed for quantity with little care and made into bad wines that were sold as cheap, mass-produced sparklers or fortified wines.
In Europe, hybrid or native North American varieties were introduced in the late 19th century because they were immune to phylloxera, an aphid that was devastating vineyards across the Continent. Many of those hybrid vines remained well into the 20th century, even as farmers learned that vinifera vines could be safely grown if they were grafted onto American rootstocks.
But in 1979, the European Economic Community banned the commercial production of wines made from hybrids. Not until 2021 did the European Union partly repeal this ban as it recognised the severity of the climate crisis.
Between 1979 and 2021, significant developments began to change the way people were thinking about hybrids. In the US, much of the current interest in hybrids can be traced to the success of La Garagista in Vermont, a small estate owned by Deirdre Heekin and her husband, Caleb Barber.
In the early 2000s, the couple developed a farm to supply vegetables to a restaurant they then owned and later added a vineyard. Heekin planted hybrid grapes, including la crescent and marquette, that had been developed at the University of Minnesota for their ability to withstand cold weather, as well as two vinifera grapes, riesling and blaufränkisch. The vinifera vines didn’t survive the first winter.
“I said, ‘Why am I bothering with riesling and blaufränkisch?’” she said in a recent interview. “Many people make great riesling, but who’s making great la crescent and marquette? I really wanted to grow vines that were meant to be here.”
Heekin decided that she would farm hybrid grapes with the same meticulous care that great growers devote to precious heirloom vineyards. She takes a holistic approach, viewing each of her vineyards as self-sustaining units in which her job is to help the vines harmonise with the natural flora and fauna of the area. She makes wine with the same painstaking yet hands-off approach, sensing what each wine wants to become rather than forcing it toward a predetermined destination.
Her wines were revelations to anybody wondering about the potential of hybrid grapes. She demonstrated not only that wines made of hybrids could be absolutely delicious, but that they can age and evolve in fascinating ways. And the example of her wines has inspired people all over to try their hands at hybrids.
In Virginia, many winemakers have made peace with the reality that they cannot farm vinifera grapes organically because downy mildew and black rot are prevalent in the state’s humid environment. Those who are determined to farm organically, like many of the producers working at Common Wealth Crush Co, a cooperative wine space in an old textile mill in Waynesboro, Virginia, have turned to hybrid grapes.
Ben and Tim Jordan, two brothers who spearheaded the Common Wealth project, along with Lee Campbell, a New York sommelier who is a partner in Common Wealth, are all making terrific wines with hybrids. Ben Jordan points to the example of Loving Cup in North Garden, Virginia, the only fully organic vineyard in the state, planted entirely with hybrid grapes.
Ben Jordan is taking part in a project to breed disease-resistant hybrid grapes specifically for the Virginia environment, working closely with Emily Hodson, a winemaker at Veritas in Charlottesville, Virginia, and Agriculture Department researchers Dr Surya Sapkota, a grape breeder, and Dr Lance Cadle-Davidson, a plant pathologist.
Cold-hardiness, important for Heekin in Vermont, is not necessary for Virginia, and while Jordan currently makes enticing wines with hybrids like chambourcin and chardonnel, they aren’t ideal for the Virginia environment.
“It makes sense to grow grapes that are adapted to our climate and growing conditions,” he said. “It makes a lot more sense than growing chardonnay all over the world.”
Jordan suggests it will take 10 to 15 years before specific Virginia grapes will be available. He prefers the term “disease resistant” over “hybrid” because it encapsulates the issue without the onus that lingers with hybrids.
“I think the whole language of talking about these grapes, there’s plenty of work to do,” he said.
Niess in Sonoma doesn’t need cold-hardy grapes either. He’s looking for grapes that benefit from long growing seasons, resist powdery mildew and don’t need irrigation.
“There are grapes that you don’t have to spray at all,” he said. “There’s no need to talk about organic or biodynamic preparations; they need fewer tractor passes and are less labour-intensive. That’s the ideal of regenerative agriculture. You don’t have to do anything.”
Niess is working with growers whom he has persuaded to grow hybrids in small blocks of their vineyards where vinifera vines didn’t thrive. He’s also discovered whole vineyards, like one farmer who grew baco noir, an old hybrid that Niess has used to make excellent wines.
He has said he’s a particular fan of catawba and lenoir. Niess’ 2024 Hero’s Journey, made entirely of lenoir grown in Lake County, is a lovely wine; fresh, graceful and floral.
For her part, Heekin cautions against thinking of hybrid grapes as a panacea for all environmental problems.
“Hybrids have natural resistance to a lot of things, but they are not immune,” she said. “A lot depends on your farming.”
Farming, she said, depends highly on careful observation and being flexible. Methods that used to work are no longer as effective.
“Climate change has erased conventional wisdom. Nothing is as it was. You have to be able to pivot – it’s all about the pivot.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Eric Asimov
Photographs by: Bryan Melz, Carolyn Fong, Kelly Burgess and Jennifer Chase
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