I posted a similar collection of Rioja photos this time last year, if you need more red & gold in your life

Not your "usual" bunch of Tempranillo grapes

Let’s get one thing straight from the start, it has nothing to do with White Zinfandel. That is a white wine made from red grapes and often in a fruity style.

Tempranillo Blanco, or White Tempranillo, is a relatively ‘new’ grape. It is the result of a natural mutation of the more common ‘red’ Tempranillo, and was discovered on a vine in a vineyard in Murillo de Rio Leza in 1988 by the owner, Jesús Galilea Esteban. DNA analysis proved that this really was tempranillo, but that a natural ‘albinism’ had affected the genes relating to the skin colour that resulted in a yellow/green skin pigmentation instead of the usual blue/purple.

You can read a few more details on the Wikipedia page, ungenerously listed under the title “Tempranillo White Mutant”

Rioja only allows a small number of “official” grapes to be used for its wines, but as this grape was effectively “born” in Rioja, they could hardly not allow it. However, it took a few years of testing by the official Rioja regulatory bodies first. They took the cutting, grew the plant, used this to take more cuttings and so on, until they had a small number of vines from which to produce grapes and test the resulting wine.

The initial results were positive, so a limited number of producers, including Bodegas Dinastia Vivanco, were allowed limit plantings of the vines as “experimental” varieties. This too was successful and finally, in 2007, Tempranillo Blanco was approved as a minority variety in white wine blends.

Of course wineries need to grow the grapes first before they can make the wines, and it takes around 3 years to mature a young vine enough to produce good grapes. However, the pioneers of this production have now started to see the benefit of the early investment and so in 2010 and 2011 some Tempranillo Blanco will start to appear in bottles of Rioja white wines, although it is still planted in tiny quantities exclusively in Rioja.

According to Dinastia Vivanco:

Tempranillo Blanco wines offer intense fruity aromas, with banana, green apple, citrus and floral characters.

Whilst Tom Perry, of Inside Rioja, tasted one of the very first versions of this wine which I think was aged in acacia wood barrels for a period and reported:

The wine was surprisingly tasty:  straw yellow color, a nose that combined citrus, butter and dried apricots which reminded me a little of viognier if it weren’t for the citrus.  It had a medium mouthfeel, and tasted  citrusy with apricots along with a little black licorice.

I look forward to seeing what producers do with it and to tasting as many as I can.

Click here to see LARGE on a black background

Mainly because I have not got around to posting about my visits to wineries yet, but want to prove I’m still around. Isn’t it beautiful though?

Last week saw some light rain on Tuesday, not enough to stop some from picking, but cold and damp weather is definitely on its way. However, Wednesday cleared a little and Thursday was glorious! However, Thursday’s sun and clear blue skies revelead that there had been considerable snowfall in the mountain ranges just to the South of the vineyard areas.

The weekend remained good, and a great deal of effort was put into bringing in what they could, if the number of tractors and pickers in the fields are anything to judge by.

This week the weather is meant to turn again and they are currently predicting rain for the rest of the week, a depressing prospect for those with grapes on the vines. However, what is coming in looked healthy and certainly those I have spoken to have been happy with their harvests this year.

Let’s hope it stays that way!

More on tastings and visits to wineries soon.

However, I took Ryan Opaz from Catavino to visit the Dinastia Vivanco vineyards and winery during the 2008 vintage activity, and I HAVE TO share this photo (one of many he took) as it is just beautiful! In fact, it might (if I beg hard enough) appear on my next Moo cards!

Enjoy!

Click on the image itself for a treat, see it on a black background for the full effect, or click here to see Ryan’s other Rioja photos.

Photo: Fall Vines by Ryan Opaz, used on licence through creative commons

The Tempranillo grape in all its autumn glory in Finca El Cantillo, the vineyard surrounding the Dinastia Vivanco winery and Museum in Briones.