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The Curious Case of Sidd Finch, and
The Even Curiouser Case of Grenello
Twenty-five years ago today, a baseball legend was born and almost as fleetingly disappeared.
On that fine spring day, in the middle of a spring training practice of the New York Mets, three of the organization’s top prospects were led to a remote part of the complex and brought into a tent erected over part of the field. Each of the prospects was told he would be facing a pitching prospect the Mets were considering for their roster, and each man’s job was to take his best crack at prospect and to try to hit his stuff.
On that fine spring day, in the middle of a spring training practice of the New York Mets, three of the organization’s top prospects were led to a remote part of the complex and brought into a tent erected over part of the field. Each of the prospects was told he would be facing a pitching prospect the Mets were considering for their roster, and each man’s job was to take his best crack at prospect and to try to hit his stuff.
What It Looks Like, What It Smells Like, and What It Tastes Like
Grenello looks like:
Grenello smells like:
Grenello tastes like:
Initially the first scent you’re likely to get with a Grenello is that of fresh limes mixed with a puree of fresh strawberries. But as the wine aerates, the fresh citrus of the lime will fade and the strawberries will become darker and redder, turning into red currants and more brambly fruit. However, the most remarkable and tell-tale aroma a Grenello possesses is what the Italians refer to as “nuovo odore dell'automobile.” Basically that new car smell. For some reason, Grenello wines give off an aroma remarkably similar to that new car smell, including the smell of fresh leather. Given that nose and Italians’ love of automobiles, it’s no wonder they don’t want to part with such a national treasure of a wine.
Of course the most obvious sign you’re drinking a Grenellos is that it’s a white wine with a big, big tannic bite to it. So if it’s white and has tannins, it’s more than likely a Grenello, capice? On top of that, Grenellos have an almost salty flavor to them right off the attack. It might have something to do with the aging of the wine or the grape itself, but there is definitely a salty edge to the wine to match the softer lime flavors apparent on the tip of the tongue. You might say it’s similar to a margarita made with freshly squeezed limes, though when we were drinking it in Monaco, Raphael made mention of pork belly or back fat with the level of saltiness, which I found intriguing and not off the mark. Beyond that, as the wine crosses mid-palate, it becomes more identifiable in white terms, with melon-lime rhubarb flavors present and accounted for. For a wine with as much tannic heft as it has, you’d be amazed at the brightness of the acidity in it. The finish though comes off as something else entirely, something akin to aged goat cheese. There’s a mellowness but also a piquancy that’s undeniable. As I said, it’s a wine unlike any other I’ve ever tasted, and putting a finger on the different flavor combinations is a real challenge, especially having only drunk it once.
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• Apparently, in both the Straits of Messina and in the valley south of Otranto, the DOCG law regarding Grenello is that the grape can only be harvested under the light of the moon on the coldest day of the harvest. Legend has it that this has something to with the particular catalytic make up of the grape where the juice, if exposed to light before secondary fermentation, spoils easily and takes on a rusty, burnt metal taste, but I have not been able to find anything online to either confirm or refute this assertion.
• Along those same lines, we learned from the well-dressed Italian gentleman in Monaco that a Grenello is to never be served in traditional glass stemware. Again, any exposure to light apparently turns the wine, giving it that same harsh burnt metallic taste and turning the color from its gorgeou shimmering sliver-green to a dark yellowish-brown. Instead, dating back to the medieval times, Grenellos are only intended to be served from large pewter or silver vessels (the better to enhance the color and bring out “la nuovo odore dell'automobile,” according to our new friend. And sure enough, the glass of Grenello given to us was brought over in a pewter chalice that the owner of the restaurant claimed had been in his family for generations and was used only to serve Grenellos, on the rare occasion that such a wine became available to him or a customer.
• We mentioned above that one family controls the entire fate of Grenello every year. You might be wondering which specific family this is. Well, as the story goes, in the period before World War I , sometime between 1913 and 1915 when Grenello was enjoying what might be considered the peak of its popularity, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. happened upon a glass of the wine while on a scouting trip to the Italian coast to identify new offshore oil locations in the Mediterranean. Mr. Rockefeller became entranced by the wine and, according to some reports, obsessed with it, having case after case shipped over to his home in New York. Unfortunately, with the onset of World War I, his Grenello pipeline dried up, as farmers no longer had time to cultivate and nurture the grape and the Italian government co-opted both Grenello growing appellations for their own naval means. After Armistice Day, however, Mr. Rockefeller picked up right where he left off, but found Italy’s Grenello reserves to be nearly depleted (because of the amount of time it takes to age a Grenello properly, many of the not-yet-mature barrels had either been destroyed or consumed by the Italian military, and it was going to take decades before the few remaining plantings of crops would produce drinkable wines and even longer for new plantings to mature). So using his vast resources and fortune, Mr. Rockefeller purchased all of the land in both the Otranto and Straits of Messina appellations and began to fund local farmers to raise and produce Grenello wine. And from this day forth, Grenello wines became increasingly scarce, as all stores and vintages of the wine (save for small amounts that the local farmers kept for themselves or bottles produced by independent growers just outside what is known as the “Cerchio de Rocca Grenello,” Rocca being an affectionate nickname given to John Jr. by the local farmers.
There have been scattered reports that the first vintage of this new Grenello did not mature until at least 1937, though there are reports that also say that the first new batch matured early in 1928 due to the rest the soils were given, and also reports claiming that Rockefeller never saw a bottle until at least the onset of World War II. Either way, the Rockefeller family are the ones who control the ebb and flow of Grenello within the world, and there are rumors that their 50,000 square foot underground cellar underneath their Kykuit estate in Westchester County, New York contains 93% of every bottle of Grenello ever made. There is also a rumor that the only living Grenello vines outside of “La Cerchio de Rocca Grenello” exist near Kykuit in a private garden in the Pocantico Hills, but that the grapes produced there are not nearly of the quality of “La Cerchio de Rocca Grenello.”
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• Along those same lines, we learned from the well-
• We mentioned above that one family controls the entire fate of Grenello every year. You might be wondering which specific family this is. Well, as the story goes, in the period before World War I , sometime between 1913 and 1915 when Grenello was enjoying what might be considered the peak of its popularity, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. happened upon a glass of the wine while on a scouting trip to the Italian coast to identify new offshore oil locations in the Mediterranean. Mr. Rockefeller became entranced by the wine and, according to some reports, obsessed with it, having case after case shipped over to his home in New York. Unfortunately, with the onset of World War I, his Grenello pipeline dried up, as farmers no longer had time to cultivate and nurture the grape and the Italian government co-
There have been scattered reports that the first vintage of this new Grenello did not mature until at least 1937, though there are reports that also say that the first new batch matured early in 1928 due to the rest the soils were given, and also reports claiming that Rockefeller never saw a bottle until at least the onset of World War II. Either way, the Rockefeller family are the ones who control the ebb and flow of Grenello within the world, and there are rumors that their 50,000 square foot underground cellar underneath their Kykuit estate in Westchester County, New York contains 93% of every bottle of Grenello ever made. There is also a rumor that the only living Grenello vines outside of “La Cerchio de Rocca Grenello” exist near Kykuit in a private garden in the Pocantico Hills, but that the grapes produced there are not nearly of the quality of “La Cerchio de Rocca Grenello.”
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Fun Facts to Impress/Bore People At Parties
From Brein’s Brain to Your Plate
“Alright, so obviously I’ve never tasted this grape and only have to go off of what Chris has given me, so I don’t have much to go on here. But given everything he’s said–the heavy tannins, the saltiness of the wine, the lime-melon-rhubarb flavors, my first thought was Osso Bucco. Classically Italian, a big big dish that needs a big wine to cut through it, and it sounds like Grenello is up to the task. I don’t know if it would be possibly, but if you could actually braise the veal shank in the Grenello wine, I think that would only enhance the dish. Also, to bring out some of the more herbaceous qualities I’ve heard about in the wine, I’d use lots of thyme and oregano in the broth.”
“So the only other thing I could think of that might pair well with this wine is a goat cheese. Since it’s finish is somewhat goat cheese-eqsue, this seems to make sense. Something with some real bite to it, like a Chevrot or a Crottin di Chavignol sound like they would very nicely with this wine. But then again, I don’t know because I’ve never had it.”
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“So the only other thing I could think of that might pair well with this wine is a goat cheese. Since it’s finish is somewhat goat cheese-
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Chef Brein Clements is the chef/owner of Bistro O (formerly Restaurant Omakase) in Riverside, CA, which is quickly becoming SoCal’s answer to Taillevant. 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 28. 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.
1974 Santa Thomasina de Calabria Rossobianco “Cerchio De Rocca” Riserva de Primi Grenello
Again, I wish at the time of our Monaco tasting I had had a camera phone or any sort
of camera with us to take a picture of the bottle. It was the most unusual wine bottle
I’ve ever seen: pitch black, with almost a mahogany sheen to it, something akin to
a black pearl in the way it shimmered. The bottle itself was a classic Bordeaux model,
all high shoulders but with a surprisingly thin neck. Again, apparently the purpose
for the black glass and the thin neck is to limit the amount of light reaching the
wine, so as not to spoil it. The label looked to be handwritten (which makes sense,
as seeing as there’s no real competition for the wine, there’s no need for the vintners
to put extra time into creating fancy labels. The script was clean but somewhat shaky,
and had the look of an arthritic hand used to hand-
remarkably clean and soft overall for a wine with such
tannins. It was truly a remarkable drinking experience,
and one that I am sad to say I will likely never be able to
recreate, no matter how much money I make anor how
long I search out my next bottle of Grenello.
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.
As we mentioned above, Grenello is a white grape that produces white wines, but with the same tannic structure and characteristics of traditionally heavy red wines. And no matter how long the juice sits on its must and is allowed to macerate, the color of the wine remains at a consistently silvery-greenish state, almost a pewter color. It’s a color that’s just a few shades removed from pale, but you do get a very particular silvery glint to the wine, not unlike liquified mercury. But the wine is not nearly as thick as mercury and maintains a traditional texture of wine, just with a silvery pewter gloss to it.
Go On. Try It. You’ll Like It. 
One by one, each man entered the batting box that had been sketched out 90 feet from a regulation pitching mound inside the tent, stroked his bats across home plate to get his range and timing, dropped down into his stance, and took his swings as the pitches crossed the plate.
Not a single one of them made a single stroke of contact.
That is because it is virtually impossible to hit a 168 m.p.h. fastball.
The pitching prospect was a young man by the name of Hayden “Sidd” Finch. Finch has been born an orphan in England but was later adopted by an archeologist by the name of Francis Whyte-Finch, who died tragically in a plane crash in Nepal when Sidd was 17 years old. Sidd made his way to Harvard, where he was considered a loner and a recluse and showed no discernable talents or interests save one: the French Horn. He was a prodigy on the French Horn and devoted significant parts of each day to his craft, technique, and tone. And yet one day, without rhyme, reason, or explanation, he packed up his few scant belongings, dropped out of Harvard, and made his way to Tibet, where he took up with a sect of monks and began studying Buddhism.
Details get sketchy at this point, but according to Finch himself, it was while in Tibet that he discovered what he calls “the art of the pitch.” No one knows how long he spent studying or what exactly is involved in the “art of the pitch,” but for reasons once again unknown, Finch made his way to Maine, where a chance encounter lead him to demonstrate his pitching motion for the manager of the Tidewater Tides (the Mets’ Triple-A affiliate at the time), Bob Schaefer. It’s best to let Schaefer handle the description from here, via an article from Sports Illustrated:
“I am about to hurry on to the hotel when this kid points out a soda bottle on top of a fence post about the same distance home plate is from the pitcher's rubber. He rears way back, comes around and pops the ball at it. Out there on that fence post the soda bottle explodes. It disintegrates like a rifle bullet hit it—just little specks of vaporized glass in a puff. Beyond the post I could see the ball bouncing across the grass of the park until it stopped about as far away as I can hit a three-wood on a good day.
"I said, very calm, 'Son, would you mind showing me that again?'”
With a pitching motion described by some as akin to the one Goofy used to use in the old Walt Disney shorts, Finch demonstrated over and over again that he was able to throw a baseball with precise, pinpoint accuracy at velocities thought unknown to man.
Now, the idea of someone throwing a baseball 160 miles per hour is enough to make even the most casual baseball fan salivate in anticipation and excitement. Much in the same way that the thought of a white wine varietal that exhibits some of the same characteristics, tannins, and flavor components of red wines such as Cabernet, Syrah, and Mourvedre would elicit the same level of excitement. But a white varietal that gives off tannins and characteristics of a red wine, that’s as impossible as someone throwing at 168 miles per hour, right?
Well if you think that, then you don’t know Grenello.
Grenello is an Italian varietal of such scarcity, that it was for decades thought to be at first extinct, and then nothing more than a myth or a legend. But Grenello does exist, albeit in near inconsequential quantities, thanks in no small part to the efforts of one man. For like the red, white, and rose wines of the tiny Bellet appellation in the hills above Nice, whose stock is bought up in its entirety by shopkeepers, restaurateurs, and oenophiles in Nice, never to venture out further than the sun-dappled capes of the French Riviera, the greater sum of every Grenello harvest is bought up by one family and one family alone, and that wine which does make its way into the public domain does so only because the family allows it.
Because of this, Grenello may be the most rare and sought-after wine varietal on the face of the earth. It is a Forgotten Grape almost entirely bought and sold by one singular force, its entire market, the presence of every bottle, dictated by the whims of a single family, and perhaps by a single entity. But for those lucky enough to taste the wine (and on one absolutely amazing evening in Monaco, I was lucky enough to share half a glass of this remarkable wine–the story below), it remains an indelible experience, etched into that person’s id for the rest of their natural born life.
It is a grape unlike any other. It is Grenello and it has no equal. It is unlike anything you will ever drink in your life. An anomaly that has to be seen to be believed. Like a young man who’s never played baseball before throwing a pitch 168 miles per hour.
First, though, some known facts about the grape. Its origin are said to come from north Africa, specifically the steep, shale hills around what used to be known as Carthage and now encompasses Tunis. However, there are no traces now of any Grenello plantings ever existing in that region, as the Romans during their first siege of Carthage burned down all the vineyards that surrounded the city (which included Cinsault, Tempranillo, and Malvasia Nero as well as Grenello) and salted the soils so that nothing would ever grow in the area again. Today, small pockets of Grenello can be found in only two places, both in Italy: along the slope of a deep valley just south of the town of Otranto in the heel of Italy, and just north of Reggiano de Calabria on the toe of Italy, along the steep, rocky western slopes of the Straits of Messina that separate mainland Italy from Sicily. According to legend, it was Hannibal himself who brought the Grenello grape to Italy, planting it in both locations shortly before the end of the Second Punic War, when the great leader was called home to defend Carthage against the attacks of Roman General Scipio. It is said that Hannibal, who touted Grenello as his own personal wine, allowed for the plantings in these two locations to serve as a reminder that one day he would return to reconquer Italy, and he return and launch his invasion from one of these two points.
Grenello enjoyed up and down fortunes throughout most of the centuries following: it was at times considered a wine fit only for kings, while at other times it was deemed so unpopular as to be heretical. In fact, there was a short period during the late 14th century when the Pope Silence XII actually declared the Grenello grape to be a “sin against God” (due to the confusing nature of the wine produced) and growing or producing Grenello was deemed to be a sin and an at of heresy within the Church, leading to the near extinction of the grape (that the Pope Silence’s brother controlled the town of Calabria and used his brother’s decree as a way to grab the land north of his town on the cheap and then ship all Grenello wine directly to the Vatican for some handsome prices probably has nothing to do with his decree. Right...)
At the turn of the 20th Century, Grenello was back in vogue, thanks to a group of American and other European expatriates who had discovered the grape from themselves and embraced it. But then came World War I, which once again nearly single-handedly destroyed almost all of the Grenello vineyards in Italy and nearly drove the grape once again into extinction (the Italian and German armies’ insistence of building shipyards and forts around key points of the Italian coast is responsible for that). It was only because of the post-war efforts of one man who had taken such a liking to the grape that it survives, but it comes so at the price of this man (and now his family’s) obsession and passionate devotion to the grape that very few in the rest of the world are familiar with it.
So what makes Grenello so special? Well, on top of the unique embryonic seeding the vines undergo and the secondary transformation brought on by these xygotes, what really differentiates Grenello is that the grape produces a white wine that contains the same roundness, heavy tannic structure, and muted acidity of some of the biggest red wine grapes in the world. That Grenello’s skin is pale green to the point of almost a silvery sheen only exacerbates this phenomenon. No matter how long the must is allowed to macerate on its skin, it still maintains a pale green, almost silvery color, yet loses none of its tannic heft. The secret, it’s said, lies in the larger-than-normal seeds of the Grenello grape, which contain extremely large amounts of tannic acid that are imparted into the pulp and juice during the growing season. Even when the grape is crushed and pressed and the juice is immediately siphoned off with minimal skin and seed contact (as most white wines are prepared), the tannins still remain. Because of this, many Grenellos are aged for long periods of time in oak, and it is said that they can actually take years–and sometimes decades–to properly age and mature. Unfortunately, because so few Grenello wines actually make it into the hands of wine lovers around the world, there is no real guide to exactly how long maturity takes, or how long a vintage Grenello can remain fresh and lively in the bottle without spoiling.
Now you may ask, how exactly do you, Chris, know all about this grape if I’ve never heard of it. Well, the answer to that is a bit of luck, fate, and happenstance. Let me
take you back to August 25th, 2006. Teresa and I had just completed hosting our first ever Words & Wine Writers’ Retreat in the Rhone valley and found ourselves down in Monaco that evening with our friends and business partners Rachel and Raphael (owners of the Notre Dame de Cousignac winery and co-owners of Words and Wine with us). As it turns out, August 25th, 2006 was also the same evening of the UEFA Super Cup football match, also held in Monaco, between two Spanish sides: Sevilla and my favorite football in the world, Barcelona. When I learned of this the night before, I tried desperately to get tickets, but failing that (the event was sold out, and scalpers were asking for outrageous amounts), I ended up donning my Barca jersey and watching the match in the Stade de Monaco from outside of the stadium, on a low hill inside the ground of the Royal Palace (it’s open to the public) while Teresa, Raphael, and Rachel toured the grounds. At the half, I met up with my compatriots and we decided to get dinner at one of the restaurants in the Palace area (which were closing up for the night, as the game started around 9pm). Little did we know why they were closing: for upon the conclusion of the game, nearly 50,000 Spaniards streamed out of the stadium onto the streets of the Palace area, and the restaurant owner wanted nothing to do with them.
However, from out of the crowd came a very well-appointed and impeccably tailored Italian man (as we later learned) who clearly was well-known to the owner of the restaurant and a friend of the place. Along with his small entourage, we watched as he paid the owner to keep the place open just for him and his friends (as we later found out, the man had placed a wager on Sevilla and had done quite well for himself, as Sevilla vanquished Barca that night 3-0). Because we were still eating, the restaurant owner asked the man if we could stay to at least finish and pay our bill, and the Italian man we never learned his name) relented.
Then, he saw my Barcelona jersey and noticed how heartbroken I was upon learning the score, and as translated from his Italian through the restaurant owner into French then into English from Raphael, asked if we’d been at the game. I replied that we had not, which was translated back to him, and through multiple interpretations, he learned that we were Americans visiting and that Raphael and Raphael owned a winery. I don’t know if he was enamored with us, whether it was pity for Barcelona’s loss, or just his own gregariousness, but the man was nice enough to offer our table one glass of the wine he was drinking (as we later learned from the owner, the man had made arrangements with him the day before and brought two bottles in with him: one to drink if Sevilla won, and other to drink if Sevilla lost. I suspect he would have had to sell the first bottle off if Sevilla had lost, but that is neither here nor there).
So the glass was brought over, we all sipped from it, and it was the most remarkable wine experience I’ve ever put in my mouth. Completely unexpected based on the color of the wine and the serving vessel (more on this below), and when we inquired, the man explained that this was an incredibly rare bottle of a varietal called Grenello.
Thus the curiosity was born.
He explained a few basics of the grape to us (as neither I nor Raphael had ever heard of it), and let us examine the bottle (though he held it as we did; apparently even the Grenello bottles are exceedingly rare and can be sold on the open market for thousands), and I furiously scribbled on the paper placemat all the information I could remember about the bottle and the wine.
Suffice to say, when we returned to the States, I began researching the grape and inquiring about it, but found virtually nothing. It’s taken several years, but all the knowledge I’ve imparted here is everything I’ve collected about the grape. There is stuff out there on the Internet, but it is few and far between. And of course, I’ve never seen another bottle listed or for sale anywhere. Not that I make nearly enough to afford one.
But often people ask me what got me interested in Forgotten Grapes and letting people know about all these lesser-known and uncommon grapes of wine. Normally, I tell them something about how when I got back from France that first time, I couldn’t find any of the grapes we’d drunk over there back at home, and all my wine drinking friends were sucking back nothing but Cabs, Merlots, Chards, and Pinots and I wasn’t going to stand for that any longer. But the truth is, it was really Grenello that piqued my curiosity and started me on this Forgotten Grapes quest. I only hope another day comes when I’ll be able to taste this Forgotten Grape Grenello, the Sidd Finch of Forgotten Grapes, once again in my lifetime. It would be a lot like watching a man throw a baseball at 168
miles per hour.
Not a single one of them made a single stroke of contact.
That is because it is virtually impossible to hit a 168 m.p.h. fastball.
The pitching prospect was a young man by the name of Hayden “Sidd” Finch. Finch has been born an orphan in England but was later adopted by an archeologist by the name of Francis Whyte-
Details get sketchy at this point, but according to Finch himself, it was while in Tibet that he discovered what he calls “the art of the pitch.” No one knows how long he spent studying or what exactly is involved in the “art of the pitch,” but for reasons once again unknown, Finch made his way to Maine, where a chance encounter lead him to demonstrate his pitching motion for the manager of the Tidewater Tides (the Mets’ Triple-
“I am about to hurry on to the hotel when this kid points out a soda bottle on top of a fence post about the same distance home plate is from the pitcher's rubber. He rears way back, comes around and pops the ball at it. Out there on that fence post the soda bottle explodes. It disintegrates like a rifle bullet hit it—just little specks of vaporized glass in a puff. Beyond the post I could see the ball bouncing across the grass of the park until it stopped about as far away as I can hit a three-
"I said, very calm, 'Son, would you mind showing me that again?'”
With a pitching motion described by some as akin to the one Goofy used to use in the old Walt Disney shorts, Finch demonstrated over and over again that he was able to throw a baseball with precise, pinpoint accuracy at velocities thought unknown to man.
Now, the idea of someone throwing a baseball 160 miles per hour is enough to make even the most casual baseball fan salivate in anticipation and excitement. Much in the same way that the thought of a white wine varietal that exhibits some of the same characteristics, tannins, and flavor components of red wines such as Cabernet, Syrah, and Mourvedre would elicit the same level of excitement. But a white varietal that gives off tannins and characteristics of a red wine, that’s as impossible as someone throwing at 168 miles per hour, right?
Well if you think that, then you don’t know Grenello.
Grenello is an Italian varietal of such scarcity, that it was for decades thought to be at first extinct, and then nothing more than a myth or a legend. But Grenello does exist, albeit in near inconsequential quantities, thanks in no small part to the efforts of one man. For like the red, white, and rose wines of the tiny Bellet appellation in the hills above Nice, whose stock is bought up in its entirety by shopkeepers, restaurateurs, and oenophiles in Nice, never to venture out further than the sun-
Because of this, Grenello may be the most rare and sought-
It is a grape unlike any other. It is Grenello and it has no equal. It is unlike anything you will ever drink in your life. An anomaly that has to be seen to be believed. Like a young man who’s never played baseball before throwing a pitch 168 miles per hour.
First, though, some known facts about the grape. Its origin are said to come from north Africa, specifically the steep, shale hills around what used to be known as Carthage and now encompasses Tunis. However, there are no traces now of any Grenello plantings ever existing in that region, as the Romans during their first siege of Carthage burned down all the vineyards that surrounded the city (which included Cinsault, Tempranillo, and Malvasia Nero as well as Grenello) and salted the soils so that nothing would ever grow in the area again. Today, small pockets of Grenello can be found in only two places, both in Italy: along the slope of a deep valley just south of the town of Otranto in the heel of Italy, and just north of Reggiano de Calabria on the toe of Italy, along the steep, rocky western slopes of the Straits of Messina that separate mainland Italy from Sicily. According to legend, it was Hannibal himself who brought the Grenello grape to Italy, planting it in both locations shortly before the end of the Second Punic War, when the great leader was called home to defend Carthage against the attacks of Roman General Scipio. It is said that Hannibal, who touted Grenello as his own personal wine, allowed for the plantings in these two locations to serve as a reminder that one day he would return to reconquer Italy, and he return and launch his invasion from one of these two points.
Grenello enjoyed up and down fortunes throughout most of the centuries following: it was at times considered a wine fit only for kings, while at other times it was deemed so unpopular as to be heretical. In fact, there was a short period during the late 14th century when the Pope Silence XII actually declared the Grenello grape to be a “sin against God” (due to the confusing nature of the wine produced) and growing or producing Grenello was deemed to be a sin and an at of heresy within the Church, leading to the near extinction of the grape (that the Pope Silence’s brother controlled the town of Calabria and used his brother’s decree as a way to grab the land north of his town on the cheap and then ship all Grenello wine directly to the Vatican for some handsome prices probably has nothing to do with his decree. Right...)
At the turn of the 20th Century, Grenello was back in vogue, thanks to a group of American and other European expatriates who had discovered the grape from themselves and embraced it. But then came World War I, which once again nearly single-
So what makes Grenello so special? Well, on top of the unique embryonic seeding the vines undergo and the secondary transformation brought on by these xygotes, what really differentiates Grenello is that the grape produces a white wine that contains the same roundness, heavy tannic structure, and muted acidity of some of the biggest red wine grapes in the world. That Grenello’s skin is pale green to the point of almost a silvery sheen only exacerbates this phenomenon. No matter how long the must is allowed to macerate on its skin, it still maintains a pale green, almost silvery color, yet loses none of its tannic heft. The secret, it’s said, lies in the larger-
Now you may ask, how exactly do you, Chris, know all about this grape if I’ve never heard of it. Well, the answer to that is a bit of luck, fate, and happenstance. Let me
take you back to August 25th, 2006. Teresa and I had just completed hosting our first ever Words & Wine Writers’ Retreat in the Rhone valley and found ourselves down in Monaco that evening with our friends and business partners Rachel and Raphael (owners of the Notre Dame de Cousignac winery and co-
However, from out of the crowd came a very well-
Then, he saw my Barcelona jersey and noticed how heartbroken I was upon learning the score, and as translated from his Italian through the restaurant owner into French then into English from Raphael, asked if we’d been at the game. I replied that we had not, which was translated back to him, and through multiple interpretations, he learned that we were Americans visiting and that Raphael and Raphael owned a winery. I don’t know if he was enamored with us, whether it was pity for Barcelona’s loss, or just his own gregariousness, but the man was nice enough to offer our table one glass of the wine he was drinking (as we later learned from the owner, the man had made arrangements with him the day before and brought two bottles in with him: one to drink if Sevilla won, and other to drink if Sevilla lost. I suspect he would have had to sell the first bottle off if Sevilla had lost, but that is neither here nor there).
So the glass was brought over, we all sipped from it, and it was the most remarkable wine experience I’ve ever put in my mouth. Completely unexpected based on the color of the wine and the serving vessel (more on this below), and when we inquired, the man explained that this was an incredibly rare bottle of a varietal called Grenello.
Thus the curiosity was born.
He explained a few basics of the grape to us (as neither I nor Raphael had ever heard of it), and let us examine the bottle (though he held it as we did; apparently even the Grenello bottles are exceedingly rare and can be sold on the open market for thousands), and I furiously scribbled on the paper placemat all the information I could remember about the bottle and the wine.
Suffice to say, when we returned to the States, I began researching the grape and inquiring about it, but found virtually nothing. It’s taken several years, but all the knowledge I’ve imparted here is everything I’ve collected about the grape. There is stuff out there on the Internet, but it is few and far between. And of course, I’ve never seen another bottle listed or for sale anywhere. Not that I make nearly enough to afford one.
But often people ask me what got me interested in Forgotten Grapes and letting people know about all these lesser-
