The Albariño grape has found itself a second U.S. home in the mid-Atlantic.
That is obvious not only from the rapid increase in popularity, where the dry white wine is selling out almost as quickly as it’s released and wineries either have planted more or are planning to increase the grape’s presence in the vineyard. But it’s also winning its share of awards, which would explain the rising interest.
In Pennsylvania, Stony Run Winery out of the Lehigh Valley won best white wine in the recent 2020 Sommelier Judgement with its 2018 Albariño, one year after Berk County’s Maple Springs Vineyard placed its Albarino from the same vintage among that competition’s top 11 finishers.
Port of Leonardtown Winery and Boordy Vineyards have been among the producers that have won gold medals in recent Maryland competitions, and both Autumn Lake and Villari wineries have earned gold medals and best buys in a New Jersey in-state contest.
While certainly not replacing Chardonnay, Riesling or Vidal on any white wine lists, it has found followers both in the cellar and the vineyard far from the Rias Baixas wine zone in Spain and the Vinho Verde area, among others, in Portugal. While a majority of it is grown in those two countries, it also flourishes in specific microclimates in New Zealand, Uruguay, Australia, Argentina and the Central Coast of California.
“I do love making Albariño. The aromatics of this wine can’t be beat,” said Lauren Zimmerman, the accomplished winemaker at Port of Leonardtown Winery, located near the southern tip of Maryland’s Eastern Shore. “The peach and tangerine character jump out of the glass. We always joke that it’s the perfect wine to bottle and spray on as perfume. The flavor profile is mouthwatering and crisp, which makes it a wonderful pairing for local rockfish and oyster pairings.”
Larry Shrawder expressed similar sentiments, his Stony Run vineyard in Pennsylvania’s Berks County more than 200 miles to the north of Leonardtown. “It’s just a delightful wine with a unique combination of citrusy and peach and apricot flavors,” he said recently, “and it pairs incredibly well with seafood, fish, light meats. It has that bracing acidity that can cleanse the palate with fatty foods. It’s just an incredible white wine for this area.”
It wasn’t than a decade ago that Albariño was strictly a visitor, something that mid-Atlantic consumers could find only at their favorite retail outlets.
Joe Fiola said he was just leaving New Jersey for his current job as the viticulture and small fruit specialist for the University of Maryland Extension when he said that someone was deciding to plant the grape in the Cape May area. “He always said that the Cape May. Eastern Shore of Maryland area was very similar to where the [grapes] grew Albariño in Spain,” Fiola said. “I don’t know if I concurred with that, but he was from that region and saw some similarities, so god bless him.”
That put it on Fiola’s radar, he said, and prompted him to plant some in the experimental vineyards that he has managed around Maryland since taking over his current role.
Larry Shrawder at Stony Run Winery in Kempton, Pennsylvania, three years ago planted 3 more acres of Albariño grapevines. 'It’s just an incredible white wine for this area,” he said.
“What I liked about it is that it did equally well on the Eastern Shore and the west,” he said. “It’s good in the vineyard, it behaves well in the vineyard, and we were able to get good aromatic wines both on the Eastern Shore and in the [western part of the state].”
One of those wineries growing Albarino in the western part of Maryland is Boordy Vineyards, located north of Baltimore but with the grapes for its top-flight wines growing in what it calls its South Mountain Vineyard. Several of the state’s top producers take advantage of the terroir created by the soil, altitude and diurnal temperatures created by the Blue Ridge Mountains that run from northeast to southwest through Frederick and Washington counties.
Phineas Deford, part of the family that runs Maryland’s oldest operating winery, said that Boordy has planted more than 4 acres of Albariño, which produces about 3,500 gal/1450 cases each year. “We like it for its versatility; in addition to our standard Albariño, which is fermented in stainless steel, we also make a Reserve that is fermented and aged in French oak,” he said.
They began researching white varieties to plant on the southeast slope of its South Mountain Vineyard in 2009, he said, noting that it was the one variety that showed consistently high quality from Virginia to Pennsylvania. In addition, one of Boordy’s winemakers, Jose Real, was a strong proponent of growing the grape. He’s originally from Spain.
They planted 4 acres of Albarino Clone 1 in 2013. “It is a phenomenal clone capable of producing high quality fruit at higher yields [4-5 tons/acre],” Deford said. “Its thick skins and small, loose clusters help resist late season rots in Maryland’s humid climate. Susceptibility to downy mildew is its one weakness, but so far we’ve been able to manage that. In the winery, Albarino produces a crisp, aromatic wine that appeals to a wide range of customers, and it is extremely food-friendly. If Boordy could grow 50 acres of Albariño and sell out every year, we would start replanting tomorrow.”
Another Maryland winery that has found Albariño to be a huge success at the cash register in addition to its quality as a dry varietal is Black Ankle Vineyards, which first planted a half-acre in 2004. Co-owner Ed Boyce said those buds were brought east from Fore Family Vineyards in California, and at the time that was all they could get. Seven years later, they would plant another 5 acres, all from their own bud wood.
“The vine is very vigorous, always the first (along with Syrah) to need hedging, but it has small leaves and doesn’t throw many laterals so the vigor doesn’t lead to much crowding in the canopy,” Boyce said. “The bunches are very small and loose and the grapes are also very small, so low yields are an issue [2 tons/acre is not uncommon].”
That original 2004 planting yields around 75 cases a year, he said, which was Black Ankle’s entire production until 2014. Often, it would sell out within 48 hours after its release, almost totally to the winery’s more than 3,000 wine club members.
“This past year [2020] we made about 1,200 cases, which will be bottled in late spring 2021. The vines decided to set three and sometimes four clusters per shoot this year and gave us by far our biggest harvest of Albariño, and it was the best-looking fruit we have ever harvested from the blocks,” Boyce said. “I am really looking forward to tasting through the wines [3 different cuvees] in the spring.”
Whatever he yields from the plants, he added, is “just really, really good. Incredibly fresh and aromatic with good body. Goes well with sauces and seafood of any kind because of the bracing acidity. Sort of perfect for the mid-Atlantic cuisine,” he said.
While the grape seemingly has its biggest fan club in Maryland, it’s also beginning to be grown in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
In addition to the two New Jersey wineries mentioned above, Hawk Haven outside Cape May is another winery producing it.
Joe Fiola, the small fruit and viticulture specialist for the Maryland Extension, likes a lot of things about the Albariño grape, including the fact that it can grow as well in both the eastern and western areas of the state.
Consumers can also find it at several wineries in the eastern part of Pennsylvania.
Brad Galer, who along with his wife Lele runs Galer Estate Vineyard & Winery in Chester County, behind Longwood Gardens, calls it the favorite grape/wine that they grow there. In fact, the winery recently received a “citation” from the state’s House of Representatives recognizing its gold medal for its 2018 Albariño in the 2020 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition.
“I first got interested in growing [and experimenting with] Albariño over a decade ago after falling in love with this grape,” Galer said. “I think we are the first or one of the first vineyards in Chester County to grow it. I’ve always been drawn to this varietal’s freshness, acidity, and unique flavor profile. What has been a surprise is that of all of the varieties we grow and produce, every vintage brings a different Albariño wine – but always fresh with great acidity, and elements of kiwi and stone fruits. In addition, compared to all of our whites, in most years it has also wonderful oily and thick mouthfeel.”
Shrawder, at Stony Run Winery, agreed with some of his counterparts that while winemakers love the grape it can be a “royal pain in the vineyard,” especially when it comes to yields. “For that reason, you find that almost nobody sells other Albariño grapes to other people,” he said.
To meet the demand, he has gone from a half-acre of Albariño vines in 2014 to another 2 ½ acres that he planted in 2017. He’s expecting to have 250 cases out of this year’s vintage and even more next year. “It is very popular and we are frequently sold out,” he said. “There are people who see we have it and buy cases of it.”
In the mid-Atlantic, it’s predominantly made as a varietal, even at Black Ankle, which blends a majority of its wines. Linganore Winecellars, located in Black Ankle’s neighborhood, is one exception, selling it as a sparkling.
Fiola said the grape tends to hang longer and later than Chardonnay before it ripens, into a time of the year that he called the “sweet spot,” between mid-September and mid-October.
Another feature he likes about Albariño is the flexibility it gives regional winemakers.
Port of Leonardtown Winery on the southern edge of Maryland's Eastern Shore has been making an award-winning Albariño for several years now.
“It’s kind of versatile, whether in the vineyard or the winery,” he said. “but you can kind of go with different styles with it. If you pick it earlier when it’s a little more acidic, you get more of the mineral type Spanish-type characteristics. But if you’re in a good, well-drained soil, like Black Ankle or even more importantly, like Boordy South Mountain Vineyard, where they have very little topsoil and the plants are always under stress, you can get this incredibly tropical aromatic thing that’s just absolutely gorgeous.
“And that’s the nice part about it. You can go from various levels of complexity, from the fruit bomb, very fruit-forward stuff, through the more complex Spanish style,” he said. “It reminds me of the old Virginia Viogniers, where they were fruit bombs and now they’ve gone to the more complex French style. It’s got that versatility.”
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Albariño grape finds a sweet spot as popular dry white that’s grown, made in the mid-Atlantic - pennlive.com
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