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A UGUS T NEWS The Next Big Thing in Wine P ortland, Ore.—Is the next hot winegrape variety waiting to be discovered in a remote vineyard in Greece, or could the future lie in moving away from varietal wines all together? Those were some of the key questions explored during a panel discussion that came at the end of the Alternative Varieties Symposium. The symposium, held June 19, was the first major event of this year's national conference of the American Society for Enology and Viticulture (ASEV.) The conference included semi- nars about current wine research from across North America. Dr. Roger B. Boulton from the University of California, Davis, re- ceived the ASEV Merit Award for contributing "in an outstanding manner to the progress and advancement of enology and viticulture." Serving on the alternative varieties panel were Nick Dokoozlian of E. & J. Gallo, Earl Jones, the owner of Roseburg, Ore.-based Abacela Winery, and winemaker Randall Grahm, founder of Bonny Doon Vineyard in Santa Cruz, Calif. More than 100 people attended the alternative varieties sympo- winesandvines.com Learn more: Search keywords "unusual varieties." sium, which began with presentations from the event's organizers Glenn McGourty, University of California Cooperative Extension advisor for Mendocino and Lake counties, and James Wolpert, UC Davis viticulture extension specialist. Wolpert and McGourty said different varieties could provide disease resistance and in- Experts at ASEV conference debate merits of unusual winegrape varieties The ASEV national conference included more than 80 posters describ- ing enology and viticulture research projects from around the world. creased tonnage to areas that are not well suited to traditional grape varieties. Dokoozlian, head of research at Gallo, said he and his staff have analyzed around 450 cultivars and identified fewer than a dozen they think would be viable for the U.S. wine industry. He admit- ted to being skeptical of finding the next great varietal wine and added that modern science is more likely to find success through winegrape breeding. —Andrew Adams WINES & VINES AUGUST 2012 15