Hidden Strengths
Tatler’s resident wine expert recommends five wines that are not only complex and delicious, but that celebrate the best of human resilience
It’s easy to forget in the midst of this seemingly endless pandemic that while Covid will one day (we hope!) be old news, the greater threat of a changing climate still lurks. Viticulture is among the forms of agriculture most sensitive to climatic shifts, especially in European regions where growers are legally denied access to some basic techniques (such as irrigation) that other farmers rely on to stave off drought or heat. Beyond the general drying and warming that is being felt across the wine world, several wine regions are experiencing ever more frequent natural disasters—often with catastrophic results, at least for individual producers.
Yet, in the face of such turmoil, wineries around the globe are finding ways to manage the damage, while also taking steps to reduce their own climate impact.
With skill, determination and usually a dash of luck, many growers and winemakers do still manage to snatch extraordinary wines from the jaws of fire, flood, frost and hail. Below I’ve shared a list of five wines to have in your glass while toasting human resilience; goodness knows we’ve all needed a lot of it these past few years.
CAIN FIVE 2016 (NAPA VALLEY, USA)
The Glass Fire, which burnt its way through northern California in September 2020, combusted an acre (0.4 hectares) every five seconds. Among the most devastating vineyard losses was the renowned Cain Vineyard on Napa’s Spring Mountain, a verdant bowl planted with five Bordeaux varieties (hence “Five”) to make a savoury, soulful wine of classical proportions. The fire blazed a path through the bowl’s belly, obliterating many vines and all Cain’s buildings, along with the 2019 and 2020 vintages. However, the 2016, 2017 and 2018 were mercifully spared, having been stored off-site. The 2016 is archetypal Cain Five, all tonic herbs, savoury woods and a tightrope walk of density and freshness. Fortunately, grower and general manager Chris Howell is no stranger to fresh starts, having overseen the vineyard’s decade-long replanting to phylloxera-resistant rootstocks from 1996 to 2006, and his team are once again diligently replanting.
FLUTWEIN (AHR, GERMANY)
Among the more mindbending images of 2021 were the floods that engulfed Western Germany and several neighbouring countries in July, leaving muddy swamps and cavernous sinkholes where there were once picturepostcard half-timbered villages. The arrival of a month’s worth of rainfall in 24 hours—an event not seen in
Germany in half a millennium—injured hundreds of people and left almost 250 dead across the continent. The small but prestigious wine region of Ahr, known for its reds, bore the brunt of the damage, with most of its 38 wineries suffering losses of vines, equipment, facilities and inventory. In the wake, a group of locals banded together to start a brilliant campaign—flutwein or “flood wine”—to sell bottles recovered from the flooding in, let’s say, less than pristine condition. The sale of 175,000+ mud-encrusted bottles brought in over €4.4 million (sadly only about 1 per cent of the value of the damage) from around 47,500 supporters.
HENSCHKE GREEN’S HILL RIESLING 2019 (ADELAIDE HILLS, AUSTRALIA)
Before the word Covid was even coined, the fires that blighted Australia in late 2019 and early 2020 had many of us around the world thinking the end times were near. While several wine regions were caught up in the smoke, if not the fires, Adelaide Hills in South Australia was the worst hit, with almost 1,100 hectares of vines in flames and about 30 per cent of its production destroyed. The Henschke family, known worldwide for their iconic Hill of Grace, were spared any destruction to their Eden Valley vineyards; but 90 per cent of their Lenswood vineyard in Adelaide Hills—responsible for a quarter of their production, particularly cooler climate grapes like riesling, pinot noir and chardonnay—was burnt. Most heart-breaking was the loss of the site’s pinot noir vines, originally planted in 1983—ironically, right after another massive bushfire. Less than two years later, the Henschke team were back in the vineyards replanting. The riesling here is plump, floral and seductive as the apples that once grew here but with a rigid, sturdy core.
DRAPPIER QUATTUOR (CHAMPAGNE, FRANCE)
Though frost is a perennial challenge in many winegrowing regions, the frosts in April 2021 were being called the “worst in decades” in France and some were even saying the “worst in history”. Champagne was among the regions badly struck, particularly the southern, noncontiguous portion called the Aube (or more specifically the Côte des Bar), which is closer to Chablis than the rest of Champagne. Drappier, the most famous house in the Aube, suffered several waves of frost that wiped out 80 per cent of the buds of white grapes chardonnay, arbanne and petit meslier as well 50 per cent of their blanc vrai and pinot noir. It goes without saying that their inventive Quattuor cuvée, which combines the first four of these grapes—mainly traditional, “forgotten” varieties—into a blend replete with radiance and floral delicacy, is unlikely to be made from the 2021 vintage. Luckily, plummeting sales of champagne in 2020 left behind exceptional reserve wines for blending in 2021, so most of their NV blends are unlikely to suffer.
TRAVAGLINI GATTINARA 2018 (PIEMONTE, ITALY)
While hail is typically a very localised problem, perforating small patches of vineyard but leaving neighbours largely intact, in 2021, Gattinara in northern Piemonte was struck by hail across virtually the entirety of its vineyard area. Travaglini, Gattinara’s largest producer with vineyards spread across the region, was comparatively lucky as at least some of its sites were less badly affected. While the small 2021 vintage will be slumbering in barrel for some time, check out the 2018—a comparatively normal one in these warmer, drier times—where the heat of the vintage is belied by the wine’s delicate frame, crimson strawberry and cranberry fruit, and edgy tannins.