Last Monday Elodie Oliver and I hosted a sell-out crowd (we had to add extra seats!) of winegrowers, winemakers, wine sellers, grape breeders, wine industry leaders, wine press, academics, and wine aficionados at the UC Davis Conference Center for a conference dedicated exclusively to the benefits of hybrid grapes for the California wine industry. The conference felt like a symbol of the seismic shifts that wine is undergoing, and it felt like we took a big, important step forward.

One of my biggest take-aways, based on the enthusiasm at the conference and feedback we have received since, is that California was thirsty for excellent wines made with hybrids.

We had three types of wine tastings throughout the day. First, each attendee sat classroom-style in the conference room with three glasses in front of them. Three times throughout the day, keynote presenters Matt Niess (North American Press), Deirdre Heekin (La Garagista), and Adam Tolmach (The Ojai Vineyard) told the story of their wines as attendees sipped and savored.

Secondly, we had a blind tasting of six wines in the lobby. Three of the wines were made with hybrid grapes and three were made with common vinifera varieties. I selected the wines based on quality and having been grown and made in the same region. I wanted as much of an apples-to-apples comparison as possible, rather than the “California Vinifera vs North East Hybrid” kind of comparison that often leads to hybrids being disadvantaged from the beginning by coming from a much more challenging climate. All but one of the wines came from the Finger Lakes region of New York. Tasters scanned a QR code and answered whether they thought each wine was a hybrid or vinifera, and selected their favorite.

Before I presented the results, I already had several people tell me how much they appreciated the blind tasting. Even though they were able to make distinctions between the wines, they enjoyed experiencing the quality across all the wines, and they often second-guessed their decisions. When I revealed the results, it was clear how hard it was to distinguish vinifera from hybrid. Most wines split somewhere near 50-50. Often the majority guessed right, but the majority wasn’t huge… usually less than 60-40 split. And every one of the wines were some significant percentage’s favorite.

I did something sneaky with the two red wines in the blind tasting. One was a really plush and tasty Marechal Foch with a touch of RS from Living Roots Winery in the Finger Lakes… and the other red wine was Apothic Red that we grabbed the night before the conference from a Safeway in Sacramento. The sneaky part about this is that while Apothic is likely made with vinifera grapes, it is also likely made with Mega Purple. And one of the points I made about Mega Purple in my welcome speech is that it is made with the Rubired grape… which is a hybrid. California, therefore, has been using hybrids to enhance vinifera wines and make them more appealing to a wider drinking demographic for years. The most popular wines in the world – think Yellowtail, Apothic, 19 Crimes, etc. – have hybrid grapes in them giving them some of the qualities that make them so popular. So I cheated a little in the blind tasting. Over 65% of people thought the Apothic was a hybrid… and they actually weren’t entirely wrong.

Finally, we had an end-of-day open tasting of over 20 wines, sponsored by Joyce Jones & Dennis Johnson. Most wines were donated by the incredible wineries who made them. If the guided tastings and the blind tasting were the 1-2 combo, the open tasting at the end was the knock-out. Attendees were treated to an array of incredible hybrids from the East Coast, Midwest, Rocky Mountains, West Coast, Canada, France, and Germany. The quality was mind-blowing. A 2012 Norton from Stone Hill Winery in Missouri was the best Norton I’ve ever had, and showed the true potential of this home-grown American legend that was once a global favorite. A L’Acadie Blanc from British Columbia’s Whispering Horse Winery was my first single varietal expression of L’Acadie that I’ve had, and holy wow I’m glad I planted it last year on the WineForest Farm in New York. The Marquette blended with Corot Noir and a touch of Norton from Loving Cup Winery in Virginia oozed class and could be poured next to any red blend from anywhere. Tom Plocher, the breeder of the grapes Petite Pearl, Verona, Crimson Pearl, among others, was there and brought samples of Petite Pearl from Jomas Hill in Minnesota that were stunning. And so many more… I wanted to shout-out each wine and winery like a herald announcing the arrival of the Queen at a Bridgerton ball. (I’ll give a full listing of all wines with links in a future post.)

And I wasn’t alone in my excitement. Tasting excellent wine is always thrilling, but tasting excellent wine that has been unjustly ignored & marginalized, maligned & disparaged is like discovering that the quiet kid who gets bullied all the time is a prodigy who can play the piano and sing with such deft grace that they make tears come to your eyes. We were all disarmed and disabused of our preconceptions by the delightful surprise of a diverse abundance of deliciousness from across two continents and many regions.

What became clear to me is that while vinifera can make delicious wine in favorable climates, hybrids can make delicious wine in every climate.

The second big take away for me was gratitude. Everything that went right was because of an incredible community of people who gave time, money, energy, and expertise to support and promote the importance of hybrid grapes. Elodie and I had the assistance of close to a dozen bad-ass volunteers who helped make the entire day flow with seamless smoothness. Everyone who donated wine made all of the mind-blowing possible, and our sponsors were not only present and active in enhancing attendees experience with displays and contributions, but were aligned with the values of the conference in ways that made their generosity all the more meaningful. And I’m incredibly thankful for everyone who bought a ticket and showed up with positive energy and openness to learn. The enthusiasm and curiosity throughout the day was palpable.

And then there were our speakers. Elaine Chukan Brown, if you haven’t had the pleasure to experience one of their keynotes or moderated panels, is a rock star. This is someone who presents and educates about wine globally, who organizes wine for US ambassadors and is honored and respected in the highest circles of wine and communication… and Elaine took the day to give time and energy to helping us all see how we might rethink the rebuilding of our wine culture with hybrids.

I announced Matt Niess as the “Patron Saint of Hybrid Grapes for California,” and his pioneering expertise enriched the day with insights and observations from working closely and carefully with hybrids in both the vineyard and cellar in California, as well as his years of exploring how we think about these grapes… and how we could think differently.

Deirdre Heekin and Christopher Renfro both took us on journeys through their distinct realms of experience and influence as the West and East Coast hybrid influencers, educators, and inspirations that they have become. They helped us to see hybrids in a larger context of history and ecology, and how we are part of something much bigger than just wine.

We had California wine legend Adam Tolmach telling his story of growing and making wine with UC Davis hybrids bred for Pierce’s Disease tolerance. Erin Rasmussen (American Wine Project) represented natural winemaking with hybrids in the Midwest, and Nathan Held (Stone Hill Winery) represented one of the US’s oldest winegrowing regions and its largest all-hybrid winery in Missouri. And Darek Trowbridge (Old World Winery) brought thirty years of pastoral winegrowing and winemaking experience to his insightful moderating.

We also had two extremely relevant scientific presentations. First, Tommy Fenster presented on his PhD research at UC Davis on Regenerative Viticulture and showed us how sustainable genetics – not just sustainable practices – need to be a central part of the best farming. Then Karine Pedneault from Université du Québec presented on her study of hybrid and vinifera grapevine response to drought and heat, so important to California.

These academics and the questions of the attendees gave me a final take away: we have so much more to explore with these grapes. The potential for hybrids is infinite, yet we have to start somewhere. We want to see how hybrids can give us more resilience and greater economic viability vis-à-vis the common vinifera varieties. We have to make cultivar selections to plant, and we need them to be appropriate for our region and location and soil. We need to understand how to farm these varieties for best results in our contexts, and how to learn the nuances of making these unique grapes into delicious wine. We need to learn how to reach customers who might be unfamiliar with, and even hostile towards, these grapes for historic reasons.

So… we plan to do this again soon! We want Embracing Hybrid Grapes to become a growing community of resource and knowledge sharing to enable us all to begin finding the answers we need to begin incorporating hybrid grapes into our wine cultures. The good news is that there are a lot of excellent producers who have already been growing and making wine with many hybrid varieties for years. We don’t have to re-invent the wheel if we can gather together to learn from each other.

Over the next several weeks, for subscribers to the Beyond Organic Wine Substack (BeyondOrganicWine.Substack.com), I’ll post hybrid grape resources that came out of the conference, as well as the audio recordings of the keynotes, presentations, and panels. I look forward to discussing all of these things with you in the comments… and seeing you at a future Embracing Hybrid Grapes.

My question for you: Where do you think we should hold the next Embracing Hybrid Grapes??

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