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The Spills, The Chills, and Forgotten Thrills of Alicante Bouschet, America’s First
“Big” Red Wine
Knott's Berry Farm didn’t always get short shrift as a southern California theme park. For a long time, it was the only option in the region. Hell, it was the only option in the entire state and country. Then that mouse-loving animator had to move in down the street in 1955 and ruin everything...Well, okay, not ruin everything, but certainly usurp most of the market share from under Knott's feet. As Disney became more of a mythic destination and other parks popped up all over Southern California, Knott's has seen its cache dwindle to the point where it’s almost been
What It Looks Like, What It Smells Like, and What It Tastes Like
Alicante Bouschet looks like:
Alicante Bouschet smells like:
Alicante Bouschet tastes like:
With a wine this dark and this tannic, you’d expect to have deep, rich, dark, smoky scents on the nose, then you take a whiff and you smell...maple bars? Seriously? Yes, no joke. Because Alicante Bouschets require quite a bit of time in oak to soften up the wine enough to be palatable, you will definitely smell vanilla, warm dough, and even maple scents on the wine. It’s like standing in the bakery aisle of your local supermarket holding a glass of wine in your hand. Or, you know, a local bakery, if you still have one. On top of that, you should get some peppery spice scents from the wine, particularly a spicy cinnamon aroma that can wrinkle your nose and make you sneeze. Like if you took a handful of Hot Tamales or Red Hots and jammed them up your nose (note: do not try this at home!) As for fruits, they are going to be dark and brambly, blackberries and loganberries. You might even get a hint of coffee on the nose to accompany your blackberry-filled maple bar studded with Red Hots. A perfect morning companion. You want a dozen to go?
Tannin tannin tannin tannin tannin acid acid acid tannin tannin blackberry tannin tannin tannin tannin tannin tannin tannin acid acid acid tannin tannin tannin tannin tannin tannin tannin acid acid acid tannin tannin tannin tannin tannin tannin tannin tannin tannin tannin cranberry blackberry again tannin tannin tannin tannin tannin tannin tannin tannin acid acid acid tannin tannin tannin...you get the idea. If there was a way to actually take a picture of tannins, that is what we’d put in this box (instead you get the chemical compound for tannic acid over there. Chem-heads, go nuts). Fruit-wise, you’ll taste blackberries and cranberries and flavors not too unlike a very big Zinfandel, only much, much bigger and vastly more tannic. Like we said, Alicante Bouschets are big, big wine. Only the bold need apply.
• Almost every wine grape, regardless of the color of its skin, is either clear or tinted only slightly green underneath its skin (Go on. Go find out for yourself. We’ll wait for you...See? Feel better? Good. Let’s continue). Red and rose wines, as you may know, are not naturally those colors but get their namesake hues from contact with the skins and seeds, which impart their pigment into the clear pressed juices. Alicante Bouschet, though, is the exception to that rule. It is one of only a handful of wine grapes with red flesh and red juice. These grapes are known as teinturier grapes, from the French word meaning “to dye or stain,” and are commonly used only as blending grapes to give other wines more color or more tannins, since both are already imbedded into the Alicante must. Teinturier grapes are notoriously difficult to turn into wines of “distinguished merit” (whatever that means. I mean really, why would a wine’s “merit” even matter to an adventurous wine drinker? Isn’t that just another way of saying “bias”?) because it is difficult to balance the already heavily-tannic juice to the proper acidity level, especially in climates that are too warm (producing not enough acid) or too cool (producing too much acid). But when you do get that perfect balance, it’s absolute magic and a highly drinkable wine. It’s a challenge some winemakers are up to. We applaud those winemakers.
• Interestingly, Alicante Bouschet is not a grape that exists naturally on this earth. Or at least, it didn’t up until one hundred and forty years ago. Alicante Bouschet is a hybrid, meaning it was created by cross-breeding two other species of grapes together to get a new grape (a common practice in the world of viticulture). At the same time, though, Alicante is not really a true hybrid either. Which begs the question: when is a hybrid not a hybrid? When it’s a hybrid of a hybrid! (Okay, this technically might still make Alicante Bouschet just a hybrid – we don’t know; we’re not exactly the lab-coat-wearing wine science type guys – but we like to think that there must be some really cool name out there that we don’t know yet for grapes produced in this way. Like hybrid prime or double hybrid or duobrid or super-ultra-maxi-mega-hybrid or something like that. Maybe we need to make up a name for it. Got a suggestion? Coin it for us in our Comments section.)
To clarify: way back in 1865, a young viticulturist named Henri Bouschet (surprise!) cross-bred the Petit Bouschet grape with Grenache to get Alicante Bouschet. But, to really understand the grape’s origin, you have to go back to 1824, when Henri’s father Louis cross-bred a teinturier grape known as Teinturier du Cher (shocking name, right?) with a grape called Aramon, which up until the 1960’s was the most prolific grape in France. The result of Louis’ original Dr.Moreau-esque experimentation with twisted grape genetics was the Petit Bouschet grape, which as you read above would go on to be cross-bred with Grenache by Louis’ son Henri to create the Alicante Bouschet grape. And now you know... the rest of the story. Yes, we know we’re no Paul Harvey. So sue us.
• Alicante Bouschet is today grown in Algeria, Israel, southern Portugal, and sections of central and southern Italy. It is also still considered an important grape in the Galicia region of Spain, where it is known as Garnacha Tintorera in reference to its Grenache-based origins. However, Alicante Bouschet reached the height of its popularity here in the States during Prohibition, when it was the most widely grown grape in California’s San Joaquin valley and accounted for a third of all grapes grown in the state( it now accounts for roughly 1% of California’s grape total, a percentage that is declining every year). Why, you may ask, was a wine grape so widely grown during Prohibition? An excellent question with an intriguing answer.
Due to a few loopholes in the state temperance laws handed down after passage of the 18th Amendment, individuals were allowed to produce limited quantities of grapes to produce wine for their own personal use. Because of this, national demand for wine grapes grown in warmer climates increased considerably, particularly among denizens of the East Coast looking to make their own wine but without the space or climate or patience to plant their own vines and wait a few years for the first harvest. Alicante Bouschet, with its thick, tough skin, strong tannic juice, and resistance to rot and mold, was one of the few wine grapes that could survive the train trek from California to the East Coast and therefore became increasingly popular among garage winemakers across the country. In fact, in 1928, one train stacked with 225 car loads of Alicante Bouschet – enough to produce over 2 million gallons of wine – was sold at auction to a single
buyer. In a completely unrelated note, bootleggers loved Alicante Bouschet since
the thick, red, tannic juice could be thinned and stretched with sugar and
water to double or even triple production from a single batch of grapes.
Fun Facts to Impress/Bore People At Parties
From Brein’s Brain to Your Plate
“So these Alicante Bouschets, these are big, heavy, acidic, tannic red wines, and the default for most people on that is steak, some sort of big red meat like a porterhouse or prime rib or a big old slab of roast beef. And those would work, certainly. But I like to think out of the box here, and when I tried these wines, the first thing that came to my mind was sausages. Especially Italian sausages. Something about Alicante Bouschet reminded me of big red Italian wines and I think a good, spicy, fennel-laced grilled Italian sausage would work wonders with an Alicante Bouschet. Or you could even dress it up with some sauteed onions, peppers, red sauce, and mozzarella and do a sausage parm. The fresh acidity in a marinara is going to cut through a wine that big nicely. The other sausage that might work with these wines is boudin noir, or blood sausage, but properly made. All of those tannins will do well to balance out the iron flavor of something like that. But sausage is definitely top of mind with these wines.”
“The other food pairing that raced to my mind when I tasted these big wines was, believe it or not, chili. But here’s the thing: you don’t want a flaming hot spicy chili. You want a mellower chili with more balanced, nuanced spices. Cinnamon, cloves, allspice, cumin, these kind of spices. Not Texas-style chili but more of a Cincinnati-style chili, if you’ve ever had that. More subtle and slightly sweeter. Especially over a bowl of plain or buttered spaghetti. What do they call it there in Ohio? Skyline Chili? That’s it. That’s what you want to counteract the effects of an Alicante Bouschet.”
“Now, if you still feel the need to pair these wines with a big meat, why not do something a little different and out there? You know what these wines would work really well with, meat-wise? Venison. It’s a little sinewy and gamy, but those aspects are actually going to work well against such a big tannic and acidic wine. Roasted or braised venison would be dynamite, and it would be even better if you took it a step further and draped that deer in a bitter chocolate sauce, and maybe paired it with a roasted sweet potato puree and some roasted onions for additional sweetness. That’s the kind of meal that’s going to blow someone’s mind, but it makes sense
since these are the kinds of wines that can blow someone’s
mind and palate at the same time!”
Chef Brein Clements is the chef/owner of Restaurant Omakase in Riverside, CA, which
is quickly becoming SoCal’s answer to El Bulli. Minus the molecular gastronomy. He
began his cooking career at Domaine Chandon in the Napa Valley and moved on to become
Chef de Cuisine at the famed Balboa Bay Club before opening his own restaurant. Plus
he’s only 27. My man knows his wine and he knows his food. Each week he’ll provide
ingredient and dish recommendations that match up well with the week’s forgotten
grape. You should heed what he says. No, seriously, heed it.
Go On. Try It. You’ll Like It. 
2007 Cedar View Winery “Sequoia Sunset” Rosé of Alicante Bouschet
As mentioned in the interview with Cedar View’s Jim Van Haun above, they produce
a rosé of Alicante Bouschet, and it is one of the driest rosés we’ve ever tasted
in our lives. A bright fire-engine/date-night stiletto red rosé, this wine has a
tart cherry candy/strawberry nose with just a hint of a wheat field on it. Think
of it like opening up a big box of Special K with Red Berries and taking a whiff
inside. But, you know, liquid. Taste-wise, it veers big and dry. We’d never gotten
tannins in a rose before, but there’s a first time for everything. This wine was
so dry that it wasn’t like tasting the tart cherry/strawberry flavor but more like
drinking only the pure essence of that flavor, if that makes any sense. Like Ferran
Adria messing with an under-ripe tomato or strawberry, one that still has a white
core in it. Suffice to say, it’s big and red and bone desert dry and red and big.
Brein calls it a total bistro wine, perfect for a hot summer day and well paired
with anything slathered in Dijon mustard. We say call the Cedar View Winery toll-free
nationwide at (866) 738-6420 or e-mail them at info@cedarviewwinery.com to order
a bottle or two directly from the winery for the long, hot summer.
2007 Obscurity Cellars “Alice’s Biscuits” Fair Play Estate Serendipity Hills Alicante
Bouschet
Yes, that’s a mouthful of a name for a single wine, but since this wine is a mouthful
in itself, it works. John mentioned above how this wine had a “perfect storm” of
growing conditions for the varietal, and we can vouch for that. It’s still definitely
a work in progress and needs some aging, as the tannins were extremely powerful and
the acidity in the wine was high, but this is going to be a winner in a few years
with big, luscious blackberry flavors reminiscent of a bold Zinfandel. It is jammier
than the 2006, but also less balanced. The nose is full of baked bread, oak, and
some flowering rosemary. This is going to be great when you pull it out of your cellar
in 2-5 years and pop it open with a nice aged steak, prime rib, tenderloin roast,
or even braised short ribs. John just released this in March, so give Obscurity Cellars
a call at (530) 620-5303 or e-mail them at obscurity@starband.net and pick some up
before it sells out.
2006 Obscurity Cellars “Alice’s Biscuits” Fair Play Estate Serendipity Hills Alicante
Bouschet
You could tell just from the nose that the ‘06 was going to be more balanced than
the ‘07 strictly due to its age, and it was. An oak, juniper, and cherry nose with
just a hint of black coffee and roasted sweet potato, this wine had much softer tannins
than the ‘07 and reminded us of a French Grenache or a Cotes du Rhone in the same
way that the ‘07 reminded us of a massive Zin. This wine started slightly sweet,
then got drier on the mid-palate before finishing sweet again, with lots of rich,
rich, rich blackberry fruit and juniper throughout. This is the one you’re going
to want to drink now, so again, call up Obscurity Cellars at (530) 620-5303 or e-mail
them at obscurity@starband.net, get a mixed case of the ‘06 and ‘07’s, put the newborns
down for a nap, and then drink up the older siblings until the babies are awake.
Think you’ve got a better pop culture icon to describe Alicante Bouschet than what we came up with? Let us know in our Comments section. If it’s good enough, we may use it in a future update.
Taste, smell, or see something different? Let us know in our Comments section.
Know something about Alicante Bouschet that we don’t? Share it with us and other wine lovers out there in our Comments section.
Think you can pair food and wines better than Brein can? Share your best food pairings with Alicante Bouschet in our Comments section and see what the master has to say.
Our Friend of the Forgotten Grapes Tasting Squadron tastes all of the wines you see
here ahead of time to ensure that you aren’t getting anything rotten or clunky. We
also try to ensure that most of the wines highlighted here are affordably priced
($20 or less) so you can try them out for yourself without having to take out a second
mortgage or sacrificing your kid (or future kid’s) college fund to do so. Lastly,
the Friends of the Forgotten Grapes has relationships with all the fine wine purveyors
we link to in this section. We know them, we trust them. You can order these wines
from them online right now and be trying them out in the next couple of days. Do
yourself a favor and order from them by using the links below. It’s totally worth
it. And tell them that ForgottenGrapes.com sent you, too.
Not as dark as previously surveyed wines such as Mourvedre and Carmenere, Alicante Bouschet does have an inky purple/violet color to it, produced from the flesh and juice from the grape alone. Because the color and tannin is already in the juice, most Alicante Bouschet winemakers don’t allow the grape must (the official name for post-pressed/pre-fermented juice) to sit on the grape’s black skins and dark seeds very long for fear of adding too much tannin to the wine and destroying the balance between the tannins and the natural acid in the wine.
Know of a bottle of Alicante Bouschet that we should try? Tell us about it in our Comments section.
2006 Cedar View Winery Alicante Bouschet
Um, wow. That’s really all we can say about this wine. All you need to know about
it is that it flummoxed and perplexed Brein to the point that he nearly submitted
by tapout. This is one of the most complex, bizarre, intriguing, strangest, downright
craziest wines we’ve ever tasted. For starters, the strongest scent on the nose was
banana. That’s right, banana. On a red wine. A HUGE red wine to boot. We’re still
not completely sure why. Brein proffered that the wine might still be undergoing
malolactic fermentation in the bottle; he thought he could see small bubbles around
the edge of the glass and some of the acid floating on the surface. A couple of others
thought the banana might have come from the long time this wine spent in oak (27
months, to be exact). Regardless, it’s a wine that doesn’t mess around. It’s big
and cuts a swath across your tongue like Sherman marching to the sea. It starts out
aggressively with a tart strawberry-banana sorbet flavor, then explodes in a supernova
of tannins, acid, and huge cranberry/strawberry flavors, before finishing quite hot.
It’s big, strong, young and just barely contained – like Schwarzenegger in Pumping
Iron. This is the wine you pour for your wine snob friends if you want to watch them
sweat trying to figure out what it is. They’ll never guess in a million years. For
that reason alone you need to get a bottle from Cedar View Winery by calling them
toll-free nationwide at (866) 738-6420 or e-mailing them at info@cedarviewwinery.com.
Trust us, you’ll be glad you did.
2007 Francis Coppola Magenta Label Alicante Bouschet
Francis Ford Coppola claims in the tasting notes here that he remembers his grandfather
making wine with Alicante Bouschet down in his basement. We suspect that wine didn’t
taste anything like this, for good reason. This is part of the Coppola Diamond Collection,
and we got a little bit of a grape stem smell and a cranberry scent as we were taking
its walk down the bakery aisle. Big tannins on this wine to be expected and a pretty
strong acidity, which tells us it must have been a cooler growing season for this
vintage. Strong cranberry-strawberry flavors with lots of hot cinnamon spice on both
the nose and palate and a decent finish. It’s not as bold a wine as the other Alicantes
we tried, but it’s
definitely typical of the varietal. Our Friends at Napacabs.com have
this in stock, so pick up a bottle, blindfold your friends, and have
them try to guess what they are drinking. It’s a fun game and
can make you a lot of money doing it to buy more wine!
But Don’t Just Take Our Word for It...
Whenever possible, Friends of the Forgotten Grapes will offer up a short interview
with a winemaker working with the highlighted Forgotten Grape. It’s their chance
to tell you a little bit more about who they are, their winery and wines, and how
they got started working with this particular Forgotten Grape . We do this because
we want you to get to know the winemakers and better understand their mind set and
their passions for particular Forgotten Grapes. We also do this because we’re givers
and only want to make you happy. Isn’t that enough for you? What more do you want?
This week’s interview is with John Smith, co-founder and chief winemaker of Obscurity
Cellars in Fair Play, California. Yes, that’s the actual name of the town. And yes,
his name is really John Smith. We did not make that up. We swear.
Friends of Forgotten Grapes: So how exactly did Obscurity Cellars come to be?
John Smith: In 2000 I had turned the winemaking at Oakstone Winery, our larger operation,
over to a full-time winemaker, reasoning that my aging connective tissue couldn’t
stand the strain of daily winemaking activities. After two years of watching the
other guy make wine, I realized how much I missed the satisfaction that winemaking
as a means of self-expression provides--I'd been doing it at home or commercially
since 1972. So I began to make plans to buy the property, build another winery across
the street, and resume winemaking with a different set of restraints--no worry about
cost, no need for profit, just a chance to make the unusual varieties into the best
wines I could. By the end of the second year of operation, it was even more profitable
than Oakstone, and a whole lot more fun.
FoFG: Why did you start working with Alicante Bouschet?
JS: I had long admired the reputation of Alicante as the reddest of all reds, and
had heard a number of disparaging remarks about how hard it was to make good wine
from. Because I'm trained as an experimenter (my degrees are in chemistry), I took
it as a challenge to see if really enjoyable wines could be made from the grape.
The first wine, from the Cedar View Winery in Sanger, where Topolos [a Russian River
valley winery that produced Alicante Bouschet; it was sold in 2008, is now known
as Russian River Vineyards, and no longer produces Alicante Bouschet] got their fruit
for many years, was the source of the 2002 wine that turned me into a believer. As
I began to build the Obscurity winery, I planted an acre of Alicante next to the
building, and the rest, as they say, is history.
FoFG: What other grapes does Obscurity Cellars work with?
JS: We have made wine from Malbec, Petit Verdot, Pinotage, Carignane, Tempranillo,
Sangiovese, Dolcetto, Charbono, Primitivo, Cabernet Franc, Pinot Noir, Zinfandel,
Barbera, Petite Sirah, and a Syrah we called (You Bet) Shiraz on the label. The last
few are not very obscure, but have come from very special vineyards or unusual circumstances.
FoFG: We tasted both your 2006 and 2007 Alicante Bouschets and will get to our notes
in a second, but we wanted to ask you to describe the differences are between the
two vintages?
JS: 2006 was a "good" vintage, as long as the grapes came in before we had the coldest
October in recorded history. We probably harvested the 2006 Alicante a little too
early, and lost some of its fruit accordingly--it's what a lot of people think of
when they hear the name: fairly tannic, needing a few years to settle down, and crying
for a minimum
of prime rib as a dinner companion. 2007 was a GREAT vintage; such a good year that
any winemaker who made bad wine should surrender his license in shame. The
Alicante was fully ripe, came through with unusually heavy fruit and black pepper
spice, and if not the best one I've ever tasted, certainly the best one I've made.
Even though the yield of all the grapes was up in 2007, it was one of those
blessed years where both quality and quantity made us all happy.
No, Seriously, Don’t Take Our Word for It!
In those weeks we are especially blessed (or just plain lucky), we’ll include a second
interview at no extra charge with a second winemaker producing the same Forgotten
Grape. Hopefully this will give you a different perspective and point of view about
the grape and open up your expanse of knowledge even further. And yes, when we do
this, it means we really, really love you. With a cherry on top.
Our second interview is with Jim Van Haun, who along with his wife Debbie is the
owner and winemaker at Cedar View Winery in Sanger, California. If you read the above
interview carefully, you already know that their winery was mentioned as the original
source of inspiration and Alicante Bouschet grapes for two other wineries. So they
must know what they are doing. And those red-leaved plants in the picture are their
Alicante Bouschet vines. Neat, eh?
Friends of Forgotten Grapes: How did you get started in the winemaking business?
Jim Van Haun: Living in Orange County, California, Debbie and I casually enjoyed
wine with friends and we got more and more interested in not only drinking wine but
how it is made. We purchased our 20 acre estate in 1998 and the Alicante Bouschet
wine grapes were already here, having been planted in 1977. With my degree in biology
and help from Fresno State enology students, I picked up winemaking very fast.
FoFG: What kept you interested in producing Alicante Bouschet, rather than just replanting
with a better-known varietal?
JVH: When we purchased the estate in 1998, we immediately began researching the Alicante
Bouschet grape. It turns out Alicante Bouschet was the number one wine grape in California
before Prohibition. It is also one of the less than a handful of wine grapes with
dark juice, known as teinturier. It is the only teinturier grapes that belongs to
the Vitis Vinifera family.
FoFG: You also produce a rose made from Alicante Bouschet. How did that come about
and what is that wine like?
JVH: In our first year of commercial winemaking in 2001, we decided that we needed
a Rose to broaden our wine portfolio. By whole cluster pressing the Alicante Bouschet
like a white wine grape, a salmony-red juice is produced without any skin contact
time. We then ferment it in stainless steel just like our white wines. The Rose is
bright with raspberry and strawberry on the mid-palette.
FoFG: Lastly, I understand you have a bed and breakfast on your property, which sits
near the entrance of both Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks? Tell us more about
that and how someone wanting to stop by and stay for a night or two can get in contact
with you.
JVH: Our 3-suite Sequoia View Bed & Breakfast is virtually surrounded by the grape
vines. Just like our winemaking practices, we go the extra mile for our B&B guests
who come from around the world because of the proximity of Kings Canyon & Sequoia
National Parks. Guests find us through our B&B website which is www.svbnb.com. All
of our suites have private entrances and private baths. The Winemakers suite is on
the second floor of the winery building and has panoramic views of the vineyard and
surrounding mountains. The Zinfandel Suite has a roman Jacuzzi tub for two and is
situated in the vineyard guest house adjacent to the Alicante Suite which is also
flanked by the vineyard as well as rose and herb gardens. Our toll free number
is (866) 738-6420.
