By Bill Hanlon

Spend enough time visiting wineries around the Brandywine Valley and you begin to notice some familiar names on the wine lists. Chardonnay. Cabernet Sauvignon. Merlot. Cabernet Franc.

And then there is Nebbiolo.

Nebbiolo is the grape behind Barolo and Barbaresco, two of Italy’s most celebrated red wines. Its home is the hills of Piedmont in northwestern Italy, where growers have spent generations figuring out where this notoriously particular grape performs best.

So what is it doing in Chester County, Pennsylvania?

It turns out Nebbiolo is only the beginning.

Look closely at what growers have planted around the Brandywine Valley and you’ll find Albariño, the white grape most closely associated with Rías Baixas in northwestern Spain; Grüner Veltliner, Austria’s signature white grape; Arneis, another native of Piedmont; and Petite Arvine, a white grape strongly associated with the Valais region of Switzerland.

There are other Italian varieties including Barbera, Aglianico, Corvina and Sagrantino. And then there are grapes with very different origins, including Carmine, Chambourcin and Chardonel.

These aren’t simply obscure European varieties that someone decided to try in Pennsylvania. Carmine, Chambourcin and Chardonel were deliberately bred by crossing other grape varieties or species in an effort to combine desirable characteristics. Carmine was developed in California from Cabernet Sauvignon, Carignan and Merlot. Chambourcin is a French-American hybrid that has found a home in parts of the eastern United States, where its tolerance of humid growing conditions can be useful. Chardonel was developed in New York by crossing Chardonnay with Seyval Blanc, combining some Chardonnay characteristics with greater cold hardiness.

That distinction turns out to be important. Some Brandywine growers are looking to established wine regions for grape varieties that might work here. Others are experimenting with grapes bred to handle conditions traditional European wine grapes can find challenging.

All of this is happening alongside considerably more familiar Chardonnay, Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon.

When I started looking systematically at what is actually planted in vineyards around the Brandywine Valley, the diversity surprised me. More interesting, though, was the question it raised.

Why are growers trying so many different grapes here?

The answer may tell us something important about where Brandywine wine is today.

Start with the Familiar

For all the unusual grapes being grown here, there is a recognizable foundation.

Cabernet Franc appears more consistently across the vineyards I researched than any other red variety. Chardonnay does much the same among whites. Merlot is surprisingly widespread, while Cabernet Sauvignon, Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Gris or Pinot Grigio also appear at multiple vineyards.

Several of those red grapes are commonly referred to as Bordeaux varieties, named for the famous wine region in southwestern France. Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot are among the principal grapes traditionally blended to make Bordeaux’s red wines, and today they are grown throughout the wine world.

Cabernet Franc is perhaps the one worth watching most closely in Brandywine. It is planted at vineyards including 1723, Grace, Paradocx, Penns Woods, Va La and Vox Vineti. Some producers give it a particularly prominent role in their red wine programs.

But I’m not ready to call Cabernet Franc the signature grape of the Brandywine Valley. I’ve simply not tasted enough wines, from enough vineyards and vintages, to support that conclusion.

What I am comfortable saying is that Cabernet Franc appears to be one of the grapes local growers take seriously.

And then things get more adventurous.

The Italian Connection

Va La Vineyards provides perhaps the clearest example. As I wrote about in my earlier story on Va La and my conversation with Anthony Vietri, the vineyard has been an ongoing experiment with Italian varieties and field blends. Nebbiolo is among the many grapes Anthony Vietri has tried while working out what succeeds on his Avondale site.

Rather than repeat that story here, the important point is that Va La isn’t alone.

A few miles away, Vox Vineti offers another version of the experiment.

Founder Ed Lazzerini approached his vineyard with considerable attention to site and grape selection and planted small amounts of both Nebbiolo and Barbera alongside more familiar Bordeaux varieties.

Nebbiolo and Barbera share their roots in Piedmont, but they behave quite differently. Barbera is widely planted there and is known for retaining substantial acidity as it ripens. Nebbiolo is considerably more demanding and is famous for the long-lived wines of Barolo and Barbaresco.

These aren’t enormous commercial plantings at Vox Vineti. Some are tiny vineyard blocks.

That distinction matters.

Planting a small block of Nebbiolo in Chester County doesn’t mean someone has discovered the next Barolo. It means a grower is asking a question:

What happens if we try this here?

That may be one of the most interesting things occurring in Brandywine Valley vineyards right now.

Sometimes Discovery Happens by Accident

Then there is Carmine.

Carmine isn’t a grape most wine drinkers encounter very often. It was developed in California from Cabernet Sauvignon, Carignan and Merlot.

Its arrival at Wayvine wasn’t apparently part of some grand plan to establish a new Pennsylvania wine style. Carmine vines were mixed accidentally into the winery’s original Chardonnay planting.

The easy solution would have been to pull them out.

Instead, the Wilson family liked what the grape produced. They planted more.

Today Carmine has become closely associated with Wayvine, where it has been made into red, rosé and sparkling wines.

There is something appealing about that story because it illustrates how wine regions actually develop. Not everything begins with a consultant, a climate model or a carefully constructed marketing strategy.

Sometimes somebody plants something, tastes what happens and thinks: This might work.

Looking Beyond the Usual Suspects

Other growers are asking similar questions.

1723 Vineyards grows a core of recognizable grapes including Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Riesling, but its Landenberg vineyard also contains Albariño and Petite Arvine. Albariño is best known from rainy, Atlantic-influenced Rías Baixas in northwestern Spain. Petite Arvine is much less familiar in the United States and is particularly associated with the Alpine vineyards of Switzerland’s Valais.

1723 also grows Chambourcin and Chardonel, two of the bred varieties mentioned earlier. Their presence alongside classic European varieties shows that experimentation doesn’t necessarily mean searching for another obscure European grape. It can also mean asking whether grapes developed for more challenging conditions deserve a place in serious local wine.

Stargazers Vineyard was an early local adopter of Grüner Veltliner, Austria’s best-known white grape, and Arneis, traditionally associated with Piedmont.

Penns Woods works with familiar varieties including Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc while also growing Chambourcin and Carmine Franc.

Taken individually, each planting can seem like an interesting curiosity.

Taken together, they look more like a pattern.

A Region Still Experimenting

Established wine regions make grape varieties seem inevitable.

Nebbiolo belongs in Barolo. Riesling seems inseparable from Germany’s Mosel Valley. Sauvignon Blanc is closely identified with places such as Sancerre in France’s Loire Valley. Pinot Noir has become one of the defining grapes of Burgundy and Oregon’s Willamette Valley.

But those relationships didn’t appear overnight. They developed through long periods of growers learning which grapes performed well in particular places and, just as importantly, which did not.

Brandywine is much earlier in that process.

Growers here face a Mid-Atlantic environment that can provide plenty of summer warmth but also brings rainfall, humidity, fungal disease pressure, winter cold and spring frost.

Different vineyards are responding in different ways. Some rely heavily on familiar international grapes. Others are looking toward Italy or less familiar corners of Europe. And some are experimenting with hybrids and crosses that may be better equipped for local growing conditions.

Sometimes they pull vines out and try something else.

That may tell us as much about an emerging wine region as what gets planted.

So What Belongs Here?

I don’t know yet.

And after looking at what is growing across the Brandywine Valley, I’m increasingly comfortable with that answer.

I’m still working my way through the region, visiting its wineries and vineyards and tasting the wines. I haven’t tasted enough of these grapes across enough sites and vintages to decide which ones are particularly well suited to Brandywine, much less which might someday help define it.

But I now have a much better idea of what I want to look for.

Cabernet Franc clearly deserves attention. So does Chardonnay. I want to taste more of the locally grown Carmine and Chambourcin. And when someone pours me an Albariño, Grüner Veltliner or Nebbiolo grown a few miles from home, I want to understand why that grower chose to put it there and what they have learned from it.

That’s one of the things I’m finding most interesting about exploring Brandywine wine.

The answers haven’t all been figured out yet.

For someone trying to understand this region one vineyard and one glass at a time, that’s a pretty good reason to keep exploring.

Cheers!