xA new grape? I suspect by this point most of you have heard of the grape Garnacha (grenache). Found through out Spain, France and slowly the rest of world, Garnacha can be found producing wines of great depth and power. Its profile is often of ripe red fruit and hints of black pepper. If you’ve had a Cote-du-Rhone from France or a wine from the Navarra region in Spain you’ve most likely tasted this grape.

But what is Garnacha Blanc?

While from the same family as Garnacha, it is a separate varietal with a set of characteristics. Ampelography, or the study of grape varieties (yes there is a specific field just for this), has over time, traced the roots of both Garnacha and its white partner to the island of Sardinia. In Sardinia, it goes by the name Cannonau and is thought to have been brought to Spain between 1200 and 1700 A.D. While Spain was under Aragonian rule, it was planted widely mainly due to its hardiness and ability to withstand abuse from Spain’s sometimes temperamental climate. With time and having only the Pyrenees to contend with, it found itself a home in the Rhone valley in France, where some of the most famous example of it exists in both its white and red form.
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A few months ago, I attended Spain’s largest wine show FENAVIN, the equivalent to France’s VINEXPO, and was fortunate enough to taste through some wines with the well-known wine exporter Christopher Cannan. Christopher’s company Europvin is a name synonymous with quality, representing wines as varied as Bordeaux, Portugal, Hungary, Priorat, vermouth and even a Single malt scotch.

Shortly there after, and with a bit of ping-pong like agility, Christopher agreed to respond briefly to few questions. With over 300 different products in his portfolio, life can never be dull. So with Christopher’s permission, I’ve augmented the following interview with a few excerpts from his website.

1) When did you start in the wine business and what was your motivation?

I started in the wine business in 1970 … out of interest in wine and desire to travel and use the languages I had learnt: French, German and Spanish.

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It was about 3 years ago that I first started visiting the bulletin board over at erobertparker.com. At that time, I was just starting to fall in love with wine and I had a lot of questions. Fortunately, I found this forum to be a good place to ask those questions that I couldn’t find answers to elsewhere. Due to the high level of wine knowledge among the members of the board, I was able to learn about regions and ideas I had never heard of before.

One such member of the board is Roy Hersh, a man who has probably forgotten more about Port wine than I will ever fully know. I found that reading his tasting notes and listening to his comments helped me to learn and appreciate port in a new way. About a year ago, this sharing of knowledge became a bit more formal when Roy launched an email only newsletter called: For the Love of Port. At first, an informal “send me your email” type arrangement, it is currently about to go public with the introduction of a For the Love of Port website.

Last month, I sent Roy a note requesting an interview. My hope is that the following Q&A, conducted by email, will provide all of you with some good information about Port wine and other wines of the Iberian peninsula. This is the first in what I hope to be a long line of interviews with wine producers, importers, and other people with a high knowledge of wine from Spain and Portugal. Enjoy the interview and let me know what you think.

-Ryan

Interview with Roy Hersh by email during June of 2005

1) When did you fall in love with port and why?

I worked in a fine dining restaurant in NYC called, THE WATER CLUB, which was literally situated directly on the East River. I was the Back of House Manager and responsible for all of the purchasing and other duties. We had a very progressive Wine Steward named Sam Correnti, who created one of the finest dessert wine lists in the city back then. We had one of the early Cruvinet systems which kept wine preserved with inert gas for a few days or longer. There were a few great vintage Ports on the list and my favorite was the 1963 Sandeman at the time. Whenever Sam would decant a new bottle to remove the sediment, he’d make sure I was present. He’d filter it through cheese cloth and we’d each have a sip. He knew I loved the stuff so he would hand me the still dripping cheese cloth when he was done. It had the sediment in it and I would hold it above my head and ratchet it tightly and squeeze every last drop from it. He used to get a kick out of watching me do that. This is my earliest memory of Port that goes back 22 years, now.

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