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It’s deeper into the mountains than I’ve ever gone before; a 90-minute drive from my home in New York’s mid-Hudson Valley to the far western side of the Catskill ranges, where quilt squares of rolling green punctuate the dense maple and pine forests of the mountains’ foothills. This is not traditional wine country. There are no commercial vineyards in any direction for many miles. And yet, I’m on my way to visit one. I’d heard talk of a young couple determined to revive the heritage wine varieties of New York once hugely popular in the 1800s. I shake my head in amazement at the thought of it, this full-circle moment. Throughout my early days as a wine professional in the early 2000s, I’d been taught that non-Vitis vinifera wines couldn’t make good wine. They were “foxy,” “musky” and overly sweet (indeed many examples of that time were just that). Growing up in the 1980s and ’90s near the Finger Lakes, a wine region that had reinvented itself only a few decades earlier by ripping out or abandoning much of its native and hybrid varieties and planting the European species in their place, this narrative was deeply ingrained. And now here I was in 2023, traversing a mountain range 120 miles southeast to spend a day with a pair of young winemakers passionate about changing the storyline of New York’s heritage grapes. And they’re not alone. A growing number of small-scale producers are rewriting the non-vinifera narrative into one that tells a tale of sustainability and accessibility. Delaware ripening, 2023 / Image Courtesy of Dear Native Grapes History and Heritage Alfie Alcántara and Deanna Urciuoli launched Dear Native Grapes in 2020. Eager to escape New York City for a quieter life, the two film industry professionals started saving to buy land upstate. They were quickly priced out of the costlier Hudson Valley, so searched deeper into the Catskills, which flank the western side of the valley, until they found 30 acres of land, an old farm in Delaware County, in 2019. Alcántara had grown up drinking mostly Spanish wines in his home near Mexico City and the couple had recently fallen hard for natural wines. “We were just learning and being presented with all these beautiful wines with grapes native to those countries,” says Urciuoli. “It begged this question: What are some grapes that are native to North America? And not many people could answer that question. And it just kind of kick-started this deep rabbit hole.” The more the couple learned about the history of heritage and hybrid grapes, the more fixated they became on these grapes that seemed to both present a solution for viticulture in a future fraught with climatic uncertainty and also honor the past. “The Northeast was a hotbed for winemaking. Back in the 1800s and 1900s, all Americans were drinking wines like Delaware, Catawba and Isabella,” says Urciuoli, referring to three of New York’s original hybrids that date back to the early 1800s. “What happened?” she asks rhetorically. “And that’s when you remember that Prohibition was 13 years long. People ripped out their vineyards; they left the field. Then you have industrialization, then the Great Depression, then World War II. It’s like boom, boom, boom, one right after another and the Northeast just never rebounded.” You May Also Like: Your Roadmap to the Hudson Valley Wine Scene Meanwhile, California was exploding with plantings of European varieties and the bulk of America’s wine industry shifted west. New York’s wine regions, namely the Finger Lakes and Long Island, rebounded but with vinifera varieties like Riesling, Cabernet Franc and Merlot. The Hudson River region survived Prohibition by making medicinal and sacramental wines and boasts the U.S.’s oldest commercial winery and continuously cultivated vineyards, Brotherhood and Benmarl, respectively. Today the region’s plantings are a mix of vinifera, American species and a range of hybrids, both contemporary and heritage. For Dear Native Grapes, Alcántara and Urciuoli were committed to growing only the region’s heritage varieties. In 2020, they planted 24 varieties on their remote mountain property. One of the couple’s mentors, J. Stephen Casscles, introduced them to rare varieties like Empire State and Black Eagle. Casscles has been one of the Hudson River region’s greatest champions of historic and hybrid varieties. He was winemaker at Hudson Chatham winery, one of New York’s first modern champions of hybrid varieties, revived by new owners Steven Rosario and Justen Nickell in 2020 and today producing some of the region’s most exciting hybrid wines. The author of the book Grapes of the Hudson Valley and Other Cool Climate Regions of the United States and Canada, Casscles comes from a long line of Hudson Valley fruit farmers and has dedicated most of his life to growing, making and educating about rare heritage hybrid varieties from his home region and from Massachusetts. He propagates over 110 of these varieties on his 12-acre farm in Athens, New York, and has recently launched the Hudson Valley Heritage Grape Project in collaboration with Milea Estate in Staatsburg. “I work with those grape varieties that have been overlooked and should not have been,” says Casscles. Lately, Casscles’s work has been focused on identifying varieties best suited to the changing climate— those that are not only cold hardy and resistant to fungal diseases plaguing these humid regions, but that also bud late enough to avoid damage from late spring frosts like the one that devastated many of New York’s vineyards in 2023. In order to future-proof, Casscles believes that grape farmers need to diversify. “I am desperately looking for older and heritage grape varieties that can better roll with the punches, as we are experiencing more violent weather patterns.” Alfie Alcántara in the vineyard / Image Courtesy of Dear Native Grapes Newly Transplated Itasca vines / Image Courtesy of Dear Alfie Alcantara Hybrid Converts Todd Cavallo, alongside partner Crystal Cornish, started Wild Arc Farm in 2016. And though they now help pioneer the hybrid re-revolution, Cavallo admits they came to the lesser-known grapes with skepticism. “There was definitely a lengthy process of getting to accept and eventually love these grapes,” he says. While Cavallo always believed strongly in a natural approach to farming and winemaking, vinifera was the initial focus. “It was once we started planting our own vines that we really learned what was so special about hybrids,” says Cavallo. “We planted an acre of Cab Franc, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir along with a few rows of La Crescent on the home farm in 2018, and what ended up being the worst winter in 100 years in the area absolutely decimated the young vines. The next few years provided even more challenges, and I started to see the difficulties of growing vinifera organically.” Particularly, he adds, with “temperamental” Pinot Noir. You May Also Like: A Beginner's Guide to Hybrid Grapes Cavallo struggled to keep on top of the many organic sprays required for growing vinifera and started to question the extra diesel and soil compaction that resulted in running the tractor through rows so frequently. “It’s now obvious to me that growing varieties better suited to the local environment is the least damaging way to farm, keeping in mind that farming is always going to be working against the natural environment, regardless of how regeneratively we try to work.” Despite its small production size, Wild Arc produces some of New York’s most visible, low-alcohol, on-trend wines. Credited with reviving the ancient drink piquette, made by upcycling leftover grape pomace, that’s now a global phenomenon, Wild Arc also makes a range of gluggable canned wines, ciders and coferments, an electric skin contact white from Itasca and a raw, evocative red field blend of a dozen hybrids called Amorici. Now a hybrid convert, Cavallo believes that the lack of preconceived notions surrounding these wines can actually be their biggest selling point. “It means that the wine-drinking public can come to them with a more open mind, as long as they are willing to eschew any prejudices that the Eurocentric view of wine that has permeated the last fewhundred years has instilled,” Cavallo says. Todd Cavallo of Wild Arc Farm with daughter Luca / Image Courtesy of Dear Alfie Alcantara Drink with Humility As I commence the winding drive home to the other side of the Catskills, my boots still muddy from walking the 12 brand new rows of heritage and hybrid vines at Dear Native Grapes—who now have 30 different varieties planted and who have just sold out their first tiny release of wines—this Eurocentric wine view is on my mind, too. Will hybrid wines ever be able to achieve the complexity and haunting beauty of some of Europe’s most celebrated varieties? The New World’s hybrids show the most potential when grown in just the right place by just the right viticulturist and crafted by winemakers who truly celebrate their innate characteristics. It’s still early days; producers freely admit, as Alcántara and Urciuoli did, that they are still learning. And maybe that’s the point. Maybe at this stage, the process is more important than the result. Our collective newness with these varieties implores us to grow, make, sell and drink with humility. This article originally appeared in the November 2023 issue of Wine Enthusiast magazine. Click here to subscribe today! Bring the World of Wine to Your Doorstep Subscribe to Wine Enthusiast Magazine now and get 1 year for $70 $29.99. Subscribe

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