The Norton Grape - In Decline or On The Rise?

[lovehockey]

I could use google, but I'd rather ask the members of DR.

When I started my Virginia winery excursions around 2005, every winery had a Norton wine. You couldn't avoid it, because it was practically proclaimed as the state wine of Virginia.

But in the past few years Norton has almost disappeared and replaced by Cabernet Franc. What's more, I was in St. Louis in April and the grocery store shelves had plenty of Norton, which appears to have turned into the state wine of Missouri. What happened? Why did Virginia wineries get rid of Norton? Not that I miss it, because 9 times out of 10 I didn't like it when I tasted it. I'm just curious!

[plarkins]

a couple reasons I think:

-growing more vinifera has become 'easier' as the growing techniques and knowledge base has increased in VA wine industry

-growing vinifera adds legitimacy to the VA wine industry compared to selling wine made from native and hybrid grapes (Norton, Niagara, Chardonel, Vignoles, etc). Who's talking about Missouri wine? meh..

-its hard to make good Norton wine, which usually needs to be aged a few years thus longer to get a return on investment, which many of the, growing VA wineries couldn't risk.

[Choirgirl21]

I have no idea where it went, but I think replacing it with cabernet franc (if that is what happened) was a mistake. There are a few good cabernet francs in VA (not coincidentally from the folks that I think are the best producers in VA period), but so many of them are underripe green pepper bombs that for a long time I thought it was the grape that was the problem.

/End sidebar rant/

[DonRocks]

I have no idea where it went, but I think replacing it with cabernet franc (if that is what happened) was a mistake. There are a few good cabernet francs in VA (not coincidentally from the folks that I think are the best producers in VA period), but so many of them are underripe green pepper bombs that for a long time I thought it was the grape that was the problem.

/End sidebar rant/

Green pepper is precisely what I seek out in a Cabernet Franc (à chacun son goût)!

[Pete]

Good piece by Dave McIntyre. Less acidity, more interest in Nortons.

[DonRocks]

Good piece by Dave McIntyre. Less acidity, more interest in Nortons.

"Either my palate is evolving or Norton producers are getting better at their craft. Or both."

Or you're aging and less sensitive to nuance.

Seriously, I suspect most grapes are capable of making decent wine - it's just a matter of trial and error (over the course of generations if not centuries) and climate.

[Choirgirl21]

Green pepper is precisely what I seek out in a Cabernet Franc (à chacun son goût)!

Good thing you didn't have Oregon wine advice for me then.

[DonRocks]

Good thing you didn't have Oregon wine advice for me then.

That's why it's important to calibrate your tastes with various critics - to see who you most match up to. I'm not saying I couldn't tell you Oregon wines you'd love, but they wouldn't necessarily be Oregon wines *I'd* love. A mature "recommender" (is that what I am in this case?) can get past that hurdle if you lay out your parameters (stylistic likes and dislikes, price-points, quality of tour, outdoor facilities, vineyard tours, etc.) in detail, and the more detail of what you're looking for, the better.

[dmwine]

Well, I AM aging, which of course .... beats the alternative ... (rimshot) ... though I'm actually more and more appreciative of nuance in wines. What I was responding to in that Norton piece was the plain fact that the winemakers are getting better at what they're doing. I'm intrigued by Alan Kinne's idea that using gentler techniques more common to pinot noir (from his experience in Oregon) might produce Norton wines that are less ....well, let's just say less over the top and more nuanced. At the risk of getting wonky, which I don't like to do in my columns, the problem with Norton is the combination of high acid and high pH. To lower the pH, you need to add acid, but there is already too much. Without lowering the pH, the wine can be unstable and susceptible to brettanomyces (the bad yeast that leads to "barnyardy" or "band-aid" aromas and flavors) and other funkiness. What producers such as Jenni McCloud and others are finding is that with vine age and careful vineyard techniques, they can influence the acid/pH balance favorably - in other words, "the wine is made in the vineyard." That plus careful, gentle handling in the winery can produce a balanced, tasty wine.

You've probably heard that before - it means that Norton in this respect is no different than other grapes.

Like Don, I used to be a "viti-racist," preferring vinifera over all others. I still DO prefer vinifera - the world does, with good reason. But winemaking is getting better throughout the United States. Stone Hill Winery in Missouri makes some very nice Nortons (and is the same winery that won the gold medal in Vienna, Austria, for a Norton in the 1870s.) Personally, I think Missouri does an even better job with dry Vignoles, a French-American hybrid grape that makes very tasty white wine. I only know about these because DrinkLocalWine.com, a website I co-founded four years ago, held its annual bloggers conference in Missouri in 2011. I don't go there and I won't mail order them for direct shipping, but I like the wines and recommend them to anyone visiting Missouri. Closer to home, I've been impressed with the Old House Vineyards 2010 Chambourcin and 2009 Seyval Blanc from Virginia, two very stylish wines made from hybrid grape varieties.

I agree with Don about finding a critic you can relate to and "calibrate" with your palate. Just like my parents used to avoid any movies recommended by the newspaper reviewer, because they invariably hated them. We have tastes and preferences that come with a certain perspective, but that isn't always the same POV of the average consumer. (That's one reason we do this, after all.)

Too much for tonight - work to do! Another column to write ...

[SeanMike]

But in the past few years Norton has almost disappeared and replaced by Cabernet Franc. What's more, I was in St. Louis in April and the grocery store shelves had plenty of Norton, which appears to have turned into the state wine of Missouri. What happened? Why did Virginia wineries get rid of Norton? Not that I miss it, because 9 times out of 10 I didn't like it when I tasted it. I'm just curious!

Others may correct me in this, but as some added info:

Dennis Horton, of Horton Vineyards, always said that Norton was a very easy grape to make alcohol out of it (not I am not saying *good* alcohol). It grew like crazy in Virginia, and after Prohibition, it was nearly wiped out here because of that.

Again, according to him, he brought it back from Missouri, where he found that people still grew it.

All of this is out of 10 year old memories of what he told me at a tasting one or two (dozen, probably) times, but there's that beginning to Norton.

He was always very proud of their Norton. The chalkboard would have proclaim him the "Norton Ranger" or something like that. It wasn't my favorite wine of theirs, but I did drink more than a few bottles of it, usually at cookouts while grilling up a big fat steak....

(I do miss my days of tastings at Horton. Always lots of wine, and at college student prices...)