Ampelography, or the art of recognising the vine

Before tasting a wine, you can learn to look at a leaf.

The word comes from the Greek ampelos, vine, and graphein, to describe. Ampelography is the science that describes and identifies grape varieties, the different kinds of vine. It sounds austere, but above all it is an exercise in attention: learning to see that no vine looks quite like its neighbour.

One species, thousands of faces

Almost all the world’s wine comes from a single species, Vitis vinifera, the cultivated vine of Eurasia. Yet thousands of varieties exist. Some cover whole continents (Cabernet-Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Merlot), others survive on just a few hectares of one valley, kept going by a handful of stubborn winegrowers.

Each grape variety is a living being that has been reproduced identically for centuries, by cuttings or grafting. When you taste a Savagnin from the Jura, you are tasting a plant whose lineage goes back a very long way, perhaps to antiquity.

How do you recognise a grape variety?

Ampelographers observe the plant at different moments in its life. Among the great names, the Frenchman Pierre Galet (1921-2019) spent his life walking the world’s vineyards and formalised a method that is still used today. Among other things, they look at:

The young shoot in spring: the colour and down (the “hairiness”) of its tip, sometimes white and cottony, sometimes reddish and smooth.
The mature leaf: this is the best-known identity card. How many lobes? Is the petiolar sinus (the notch where the stalk joins) open in a U or closed, almost overlapping? Are the teeth along the edge pointed or rounded? Is the underside of the leaf hairy?
The bunch: compact or loose, cylindrical or conical, winged or not.
The berry: round or oval, its colour, the thickness of its skin, the colour of its flesh and its juice.
The rhythm of life: the date of budburst (when the buds open) and of ripening. Varieties are described as early or late.

With a little practice, you end up recognising some vines from a distance, by their shape and the shade of their leaves. It is a walker’s knowledge.

When DNA tells family stories

Since the 1990s, genetic analysis has added to the ampelographer’s eye, and there have been plenty of surprises:

Chardonnay, Gamay, Aligoté and Melon (the Muscadet grape) are all children of Pinot and a long-despised grape variety, Gouais blanc. “Nobles” born of an encounter with a “commoner”: the vine cares little for hierarchies.
Cabernet-Sauvignon was born of a spontaneous cross between Cabernet franc and Sauvignon blanc.
Syrah descends from two little-known grape varieties: Dureza, from the Ardèche, and Mondeuse blanche, from Savoie.

These discoveries remind us that grape varieties are not brands. They are families, born of chance, migration and the patience of farmers.

Why it matters for living wine

In the 19th century, phylloxera, a tiny aphid from America, devastated almost all of Europe’s vineyards. To replant them, vines were grafted onto resistant American rootstocks. Mostly, people replanted a handful of productive or fashionable grape varieties. Hundreds of local varieties came close to disappearing.

Today, many winegrowers, often within the natural wine movement, are bringing these forgotten grape varieties back to life: Mancin, Prunelard, Verdesse, Persan, Jurançon noir, Tressot… They find them in old plots, at the neighbours’, or in the great collections such as the Domaine de Vassal, near Sète, which holds several thousand varieties from all over the world.

These grape varieties are often well suited to their region, sometimes more resistant to drought or disease. Above all, they offer flavours we had forgotten. Saving them preserves biodiversity, and it also keeps a memory alive.

Six grape varieties to start with

A first selection of grape varieties dear to natural winegrowers. Each will soon have its own full profile.

Gamay (black)

The Beaujolais grape, a child of Pinot and Gouais. It is happy on granite and gives juicy, fruity, easy-drinking wines. The natural wine movement was born with it, around Jules Chauvet and winegrowers such as Marcel Lapierre. You also find it in the Loire and in Auvergne.

Chenin (white)

The great white grape of the Loire. On the schists of Anjou or the tuffeau of Vouvray and Montlouis, it can be dry, off-dry, sparkling or sweet. It has lively acidity and a great capacity to age, and its character moves from quince to beeswax.

Poulsard (or Ploussard) (black)

A Jura grape variety with skin so thin that its wines are often a very pale red, almost rosé. They are light in colour and surprisingly deep on the palate, with notes of small red fruits, spice and forest floor.

Savagnin (white)

The grape of vin jaune. Aged under a veil of yeast for more than six years, it takes on aromas of walnut, curry and spice. Made “ouillé”, that is, with the barrels regularly topped up to avoid contact with air, it gives sharp, saline whites.

Mauzac (white)

The grape of Gaillac and Limoux, often linked with the méthode ancestrale, the oldest way of making bubbles. It tastes of apple, sometimes pear, with a rustic, cheerful side.

Grenache (black, grey or white)

It loves sun, wind and poor soils, from Roussillon to the Rhône valley. It stands up to drought, and its old bush-trained vines give warm wines with notes of ripe red fruit and garrigue.