26 Comments

1. 

   ryan on June 17, 2010 at 8:26 am

   Jo, it’s Catavino.net not Catavino.com! 🙂

   Thanks for the reference!

2. 

   Luis Ribeiro on June 17, 2010 at 8:50 am

   Hi Jo

   Trying to help you

   Check this site for white grapes
   http://www.ivv.min-agricultura.pt/np4/np4/152.html

   and this one for red
   http://www.ivv.min-agricultura.pt/np4/np4/153.html

   Lots of grapes to taste!!!
   Cheers

3. 

   Marco Montez on June 17, 2010 at 9:10 am

   Jo,

   After you find them all it would be even more interesting to find wines made with them. I highly recommend this book by Richard Mayson:

   http://www.amazon.co.uk/Vineyards-Portugal-Mitchell-Beazley-Guides/dp/1840007338

4. 

   Jo Diaz on June 17, 2010 at 9:20 am

   Ryan, corrected. Thanks. I need all the help I can get ;^)

   At least the link did get anyone to the right location. Now the correct URL is also published correctly.

5. 

   Vinogirl on June 17, 2010 at 9:22 am

   OMG! Did you get writer’s cramp typing this?

6. 

   Jo Diaz on June 17, 2010 at 9:23 am

   Luis… Wow… I’d say the only reason for me to have done all of this research was to get me to these sites. It will be fun to cross check, seeing what I’ve missed, and/or could I have others not on this list?

   I’ll be back after I study the two side by side. How fun! Thanks.

7. 

   Jo Diaz on June 17, 2010 at 9:27 am

   Marco,

   Now kidding. I’m on a Wine Century Club quest. The goal is to have tasted 100 different varieties, not necessarily as a single cultivar in one wine. I’ve made it past my first 100, and now I’m headed toward my next 100. Once I’ve tasted 200, I can keep going to 300 and 400. If I get the proper Portuguese wines, I could accomplish this a lot quicker than with any other country’s wines.

   I’ll buy Richard’s book. thanks for the tip.

8. 

   Jo Diaz on June 17, 2010 at 9:27 am

   Vinogirl,

   Let’s just say that this list took more than one day. ;^)

9. 

   Peter Turrone on June 17, 2010 at 3:36 pm

   I’m really interested in Portuguese varieties grown in California. Does anyone know what people have tried growing here and what has succeeded and/or failed?

   Great list, BTW!

10. 

    Jo Diaz on June 17, 2010 at 6:55 pm

    Yes, there are success stories. TAPAS organization (Tempranillo Advocates Producers and Amigos Society) at http://www.tapasociety.org.

11. 

    Pamela @ Enobytes on June 17, 2010 at 8:21 pm

    Now that’s a lot of grapes? Are you going to test us on this list? 🙂

12. 

    Wine Pleasures on June 18, 2010 at 6:41 am

    We have asked the question on the nº of grape varieties in Portugal several times and never get an answer! So please let us know when you get the definitive nº between 250 and 300.

13. 

    Jo Diaz on June 18, 2010 at 7:08 am

    I’m not sure anyone is going to get the definitive number, because the name of grapes seems to change from one appellation to the next, I do know that I’m going to keep going until I’ve exhausted every available avenue, separating as much as possible. At some point, I’ll hit the wall, and that will be my definite number… I plan to be busy for a while, though.

14. 

    Jo Diaz on June 18, 2010 at 7:09 am

    You can’t even test me on the list, but I did learn a lot in the process, because the same names came up over-and-over again. Very cute!

15. 

    brian hosmer on June 18, 2010 at 7:43 am

    Did you try the super gigantic Y2K wine grape glossary
    http://www.wineloverspage.com/wineguest/wgg.html

16. 

    Jo Diaz on June 18, 2010 at 7:55 am

    Nope, I haven’t, but it looks like another great resource. Thanks, Brian.

17. 

    Wendy on October 20, 2013 at 3:29 am

    By the way, Alvarelhão is a Dão variety as well as Douro. Would love to hear how you’re getting on with this list. I live in Portugal and make wine for my own consumption from the vines growing on my quinta (homestead) and I’m trying to identify them.

    In common with many quintas in this area, mine is planted with many traditional grape varieties of the Dão region, all mixed together with white amongst the red. Pre-blended, so to speak. No two adjacent vines are the same variety. I’ve been able to identify some but there are many and some which, I’ve been told, it’s entirely possible nobody can name. I’ve certainly got grapes I can’t identify from any of the online sources I’ve found. There are roughly 3 times as many red as white grapes which seems to be more or less the norm. Many people even pick them together and make their wine from the mixture.

    One thing I love about the rural Portuguese is their down-to-earth attitude about their produce. There’s lots of pride in what they make – and justifiably so – but snobbery is rare. It does mean though that if you want to attach labels to varieties, it’s a big challenge. If you ask what grape varieties people have growing, mostly you just get a shrug and “local varieties …” in response. Part of this too is that land is passed down from generation to generation and even if the varieties were known by name by the original planter, the knowledge is lost by the time it reaches their grandchildren’s grandchildren.

18. 

    Ninelle on June 17, 2014 at 10:28 am

    Georgia has 521 varieties of grapes! Georgia is called Wine Motherland!

19. 

    Stephen Yeates on March 2, 2015 at 5:30 am

    A great page, thank you.

    I am researching global grape varities and Portugal is throwing up all sorts of dilemmas for me.Albeit very interesting.

    Do you know anything about the variety Coda?

    All the best
    Stephen

20. 

    Stephen Yeates on March 2, 2015 at 5:31 am

    Sorry re my last post.

    The grape variety is Codo

21. 

    Jo Diaz on March 2, 2015 at 7:40 am

    Stephen, no, I’m not familiar with this variety. I can ask a Portuguese friend, if you’d like?

22. 

    Jerry Rodrigues on May 31, 2015 at 9:55 am

    Hi Stephen

    The original name that you have mentioned for the white grape variety Coda, seems correct. In Italy, the name Coda di Volpe means “tail of the fox”, and was given in reference to the grape variety’s long, pendulous bunches of grapes, which resemble a fox’s bushy tail. Just look-up http://www.wine-searcher.com/.

    I would just like to add some comments on the subject of ‘Portugal has more indigenous grape varieties than any other country in the world’.

    I would not totally agree with your statement about Portugal having more indigenous grape varieties than any country in the world. The main reason why I say this is that recently, it has been proved scientifically, via grapevine microsatellite DNA analysis (using what as known as Simple Sequence Repeats – or SSR), that there is a lot of synonymy (i.e. different names for the same grapevine variety) within the Vitis vinifera grapevines of the world.

    So I’m inclined rather to name the 4 countries that most likely have within them, the most indigenous grape varieties OF the world. Those three countries are, in this order: Georgia (as highlighted by Ninelle), Italy (including Sicily) and then, maybe Portugal (including Madeira) followed by Spain.

    My ancestry is actually Portuguese (parents originally from Madeira) and my hobby for the last 40 years has been the breeding of new red wine grape varieties. I have created a new ruby-red wine grape cultivar which I have called ‘Cabernet labrusco’, which is a deliberate cross between Cabernet sauvignon X Danugue noir. This new cultivar has been analysed using 19 SSR microsatellite markers which has proven that the parentage of Cabernet labrusco is correct.
    This new variety of grapevine has been created in South Africa where I reside. Please take some time to visit my blog on this new variety at:
    http://www.cabernetlabrusco.co.za/
    Thanks.
    Jerry

23. 

    Jo Diaz on May 31, 2015 at 10:40 am

    Thanks, Jerry. This is an excellent comment and worthy of a separate blog post. I’ll run it by you via E-Mail, before publishing.

24. 

    Jerry Rodrigues on June 2, 2015 at 3:16 am

    Hi

    I just want to correct my misunderstanding of what Stephen actually meant when he mentioned the grape variety ‘Codo’ (which seems to have an origin in Portugal). Unfortunately, I could not find any other information about this variety (hopefully it is not extinct).

    On the subject of ‘Portugal has more indigenous grape varieties than any other country in the world’, I found the following interesting information:

    Federico Vincenzi, Italian sommelier and wine writer, gives (in 2006) a quote from Jancis Robinson that “there are more then 350 different authochthonous (aka indigenous, native) wine grape varietals in Italy” (see http://www.jancisrobinson.com/articles/italys-treasure-trove-of-grape-varieties-anyone-for-tintilia)
    However, Dr Ian D’Agata, in his new book, Native Wine Grapes of Italy (2014), describes more than 500 different authochthonous varieties from Italy (including Sardinia and Sicily).

    Note that: …“autochthonous” … refers to grape varieties that are almost exclusively the result of natural cross-breeding or mutation in a particular growing area, and have a long history in that area. Throughout their development, they adjusted well to the local conditions – and ‘today’ give their best quality under these same conditions (see ref: http://www.veronissima.com/sito_inglese/html/wine-history-verona.html).

    I would actually put the above note in a different (more scientific) way by saying that “autochthonous” really implies that a mechanism of ‘natural selection’ has been at work on all these ‘local’ cultivars that allow the ‘fittest’ to survive in those particular regions. So, this could very well mean that even an ‘international’ cultivar, such as Cabernet sauvignon, could have undergone some small mutations that would result in a ‘clone’ that is better adapted to a particular environment. One of the best examples of a cultivar that does not adapt very well in many environments (terroirs, climatic conditions etc.) is that of Pinot noir. This cultivar seems to easily undergo ‘unfavourable’ mutations in very hot climatic regions, and so does generally badly outside France.

    I would like anyone to maybe comment on my statement above and correct me if I’m wrong.

    Thanks

25. 

    Jo Diaz on June 2, 2015 at 10:09 am

    Green Valley of the Russian River Valley in Sonoma County makes so very pretty Pinot Noirs. They growers all refer to the Dijon clone, but I’m not a vigneron, so I’m very limited in knowledge. We do have an absence of the damp (barn yard) quality, but the flavors are very still very delicious. It’s also very hard to grow here, for the same reasons as France. Green Valley has a lot of moisture, via fog from a couple of water influences: the Petaluma Wind Gap and the Russian River.

26. 

    Jerry Rodrigues on June 2, 2015 at 12:17 pm

    Hi Jo

    That is precisely what I was trying to explain about the temperamental Pinot noir cultivar.
    The Green Valley of the Russian River Valley in Sonoma County is a very good example of the adaptation of certain Pinot noir clones to the local cool climate afforded by the foggy conditions in the region.
    As Tony Craig of Sonnet Wine Cellars and Ed Muns of Muns Vineyard highlighted in a recent talk on Pinot noirs, they mention that there are some 50 certified Dijon (French) clones available to experiment with. That’s a lot of clones at one’s disposal, unlike with other noble cultivars such as Cabernet sauvignon etc.

    So the implication is that after a number of years of adaptation of a number of these Pinot noir clones to the local environmental conditions, one would eventually accept that such Pinot noir clones could be regarded as autochthonous for the Sonoma county (or for California in the broadest terms).

    Thanks for this beautiful example and ‘cheers’ to a glass of Pinot noir, salud!

    All the best
    Jerry

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