Can't Take The Place Out Of The Grape

My first taste of Delaware in the Catskills sends me down a rabbit hole that reminds me of other rabbit holes. As usual, I've forgotten my compass.

In central Italy, Montepulciano d’Abruzzo is a red wine made from a grape called Montepulciano…from the region of Abruzzo. Seems straightforward enough, right? Until you confuse it for Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, a red wine from the town of Montepulciano, 300 miles northwest in Tuscany. Here, the wine is made from Sangiovese, a totally unrelated (and well-loved) grape. To confuse things further, there’s a local name for Sangiovese here: Prugnollo Gentile.

This tripped-up parent trap of a fact is pervasive in wine. It’s the kind of thing that makes sommeliers rip their hair out—a long history of making and naming wine combined with naming and then conquering and then renaming land has resulted in the most gnarled family tree—one would have to be at least a little crazy to climb it. Luckily, there’s a breathtaking view at the top. Names are irreversibly tied to place, as we are. They are the keeper of our histories, the mantle on which our story is dusted, and like the slightest slope, even the small differences are significant.

I was reminded of this sitting in the winery and future tasting room of dear native grapes, in the Catskill Mountains with Alfie Alcántara, who started the winery with his wife, Deanna Urciuoli in 2019. I was holding a glass of my first-ever taste of Delaware, which Alcántara had pulled from a stainless steel barrel. After taking a sip of the golden potion, my mind thought of Alsace, France, and I snapped a photo telling Alcántara, “I will remember this wine for the rest of my life.”

Sometimes, upon tasting a wine, my mind will curve any food-related descriptors and instead pull up memories of a feeling I had when drinking wine in the past. I can’t say the Delaware tasted much like the wines of Alsace, but it sure did bring up the mood. I only wrote a few words in my notebook, bright, elegant, orange…Alsace. The wine, still in the midst of fermentation, felt complete. Even Alcántara was surprised by it.