Grapetionary
[It] was like discovering a wine-cellar filled with bottles of amazing wine
of a kind and flavour never tasted before. It quite intoxicated me . . .
— J. R. R. Tolkien, letter to W. H. Auden, 1955
It is hard to go wrong traveling to vineyards or talking to winemakers. But can winemakers alone transform America’s wine culture? Maybe not. That’s why people such as Jason Tesauro are so important. He is a writer and sommelier who worked for years at Virginia’s Barboursville Vineyards, just over an hour outside Washington, DC. They’re known for fine vintages made from classic French grapes, and also for successfully planting varieties such as Nebbiolo, Viognier, Vermentino, Cabernet Franc, and Malvasia (the grape from Leonardo’s vineyard).
Tesauro created an event called Grapetionary A–Z, which gives American wine lovers a chance to try twenty-six rare, unusual wines in a single magnificent tasting. Like me, he fell in love with rare grapes almost by accident, tasting some memorable wines from Moldova. He puzzled over why more people weren’t talking about them. “I wasn’t drawn to ‘Ooh, let’s take a trip to Napa. Ooh, let’s take a trip to Bordeaux.’ I was like, wait a minute. They’re growing grapes in Moldova, and they’ve been doing it for hundreds of years? How have I not tasted this? And so I jumped on a plane.”
His feature article about the trip won a national journalism award. Looking back on his early years as a wine lover in the 1990s, Tesauro saw what I did: a wine world featuring just six or seven grapes. Anything outside of the classics was unusual. Being in Moldova changed how Tesauro thought about wine. “The more I drank [those wines], the more I wanted to connect with, ‘How did they get lost?’ That question brought me to the geopolitical stories of how the Russians kept the Moldovans under their thumbs, and this is why I got into wine, for something more than just the transference of alcohol into my system. Even more than the flavor, it was the passport to another time, another culture, another place. And I found that those indigenous grapes, in particular, were the fastest way there. Because instead of us talking about a winemaker’s ego, you know, ‘what does he do or she do with new French barriques and micro-oxygenation?’ it was, ‘who were the stewards of these grapes that were traditionally grown in this one spot?’ ”
“Part of what I love about wine is that egalitarian side,” he added. “If you spend your life running around saying, ‘Oh, I’ve been to the great chateaux and I’ve had all the premier cru,’ then you’re kind of nosing those who were behind you. Whereas going and visiting places that are not yet on the map, so to speak, you’re back to that place of curiosity, of teach me, oh wise one, tell me what I don’t know, and don’t just let me spout off about what I do know.”
In late 2015 Tesauro developed the first Grapetionary, pitching the idea to the Atlanta Food & Wine Festival. Their initial response was “Are you out of your mind?” But the organizers quickly came to love the idea. Logistics and public response were the biggest questions. They needed a grape variety for each letter of the alphabet, which meant sourcing vintages from Lebanon, Turkey, Georgia, Austria, and many other countries. They also needed ten bottles each of all twenty-six wines, to handle the target audience of a hundred subscribers, each paying $275 for an experience, which also included exceptional food. The response was overwhelmingly positive. A Forbes reviewer called it “the most unique wine event I’ve ever experienced.” Well-known people in the wine world took notice. Randall Grahm, Jancis Robinson, and José Vouillamoz all contacted or praised Tesauro.
Tesauro held another Grapetionary in Washington, DC, with food from Michelin star chef Nicholas Stefanelli, and then another at a private charity event organized by a Virginia billionaire. A Washington Post headline read, “From aglianico to zibibbo, he poured an alphabetical tour of wine grapes,” and the reviewer wrote, “Even for a jaded wine fiend like me, there were some surprises.” Tesauro said people at all the events become kids again. They have fun trying to pronounce the strange names, and he loves that playful aspect. “All the wines are good, some of the wines are great. Forget whether or not the wine tasted of blueberry or strawberry. Did it move you? And how did it move you? Does it conjure that last great trip to Greece? My role is simply to play Johnny Grapeseed, and say, ‘Did you know . . . that Yapincak is thriving in Turkey?’ ”
The unusual grapes are a learning experience, too. Take Yapincak for example. Turkey’s eastern vineyards are in the area where Noah’s Ark reputedly came to rest, which is also part of the broad region that McGovern, Vouillamoz, and other scientists have identified as the likely birthplace of winemaking. “I had no idea this grape existed,” Tesauro said of Yapincak. “It is now offered by the glass in the best wine bar in Richmond, because I brought a bottle to the proprietress and said, ‘I know you dig off-the-wall stuff. This wine is going to knock your socks off.’ Now Yapincak sales have taken off in the mid-Atlantic.” It all happened through word of mouth from sommeliers, restaurant owners, and customers. “Yes, it’s so easy for people to just reach for what they know. But you give them a chance to taste something that’s completely new—but has an old, earthy, and authentic story, with real terroir and real flavor. They will recognize the trueness of that, and it will strike them.”
Listening to Tesauro, I thought back to the time eight years earlier when people gave me strange or puzzled looks about Cremisan, or grapes such as Jandali. My point? A wave of diverse, flavorful wines are more and more available all over the country. You don’t have to go to the Caucasus Mountains to try them. For a parallel, look at what has happened with food.
In the early 1980s I used to go fly-fishing in the Catskill Mountains in southeastern New York. One day I noticed a bakery in a ramshackle building along the side of the road, near the teensy town of Boiceville, in the middle of nowhere. The bread was magnificent. Huge, round, crusty loves of chewy white, hearty raisin walnut, and other specialties. Bread Alone Bakery now has four locations in the state, and founders Daniel Leader and Sharon Burns-Leader have a son who joined the business.
At the end of that decade I spent part of the year working on a Hudson Valley farm that made goat cheese. One milking shift started at four in the morning, another at five. Over time I learned how to make the basic cheeses, taking the Sunday morning shift in the creamery. The place was Coach Farm, and in 2017 they’re still going strong. Wine today is where local foods were twenty years ago. Change is coming.
Tastings
Here are a few of the wines (and grapes) Jason Tesauro has surprised people with so far:
Agiorgitiko, Aivalis Winery, Greece
Emir, Turasan Winery, Turkey
Yapincak, Pasaeli Winery, Turkey
Kisi, Schuchmann Wines, Georgia
Obaideh, Chateau Musar, Lebanon
Ucelùt, Emilio Bulfon, Italy
Blaufränkisch, Weingut Glatzer, Austria
Zweigelt, Weingut Markus Huber, Austria
Petit Manseng, Michael Shaps Wineworks, United States