January 26th held the first (hopefully annual!) Embracing Hybrid Grapes conference at UC Davis, California. The event brought together farmers, winemakers, scientists, breeders, writers, educators, and consumers around hybrid grapes. We tasted, we blind tasted, we heard from folks like Deirdre Heeken of La Garagista, Christopher Renfro of Two Eighty Project, Matt Niess of North American Press, and renowned author Elaine Arnaqiaq Chukan Brown. We spoke about California’s wild vineyards, explored hybrid grapes’ resilience in temperature extremes, and dug into Missouri’s hybrid history. Below, I’ll take you through a couple of thoughts that stayed with me:
Hybrids grow differently
My husband and I have only a few years of experience growing hybrids in our home state of Maine: Marquette, Petite Pearl, Cayuga, Frontenac Noir, L’Acadie Blanc, and Somerset Seedless, over three vintages. We always thought we were doing something wrong—our vines were very vigorous. We were using vertical shoot positioning (VSP) with some and high wire with others, and spent so much time getting everything into place. You’d tuck a shoot into place, turn your back, and it was already clinging to the grass. Every week meant trimming the tops and pulling leaves, again and again. I wasn’t used to the vigor. It had to be me.
Was I pruning wrong? Why does my vineyard seem determined to turn back into a forest, yearning to climb a tree? Why do I often feel compelled to pick some of my varieties at a lower Brix than I’m used to? I felt like I wasn’t a “real grower” and didn’t know what I was doing. I’m sure that second part was mostly true. At Embracing Hybrid Grapes, I was suddenly surrounded by growers saying, ‘Oh yeah, hybrids want to do their own thing. You can’t think about them the same way you do vinifera, many of them ripen at lower sugars.” [Note: some hybrids are notorious for ripening at high sugars. I’m looking at you Frontenac!] Some growers argued that many hybrids weren’t suited for VSP at all.
Here was an “aha moment”. These grapes are different. We need to speak to them in their language, not force upon them a language that has molded us. We need to be mentees to these grapes, and mentees of the people who have dedicated countless hours to caring for them. I’ve been lucky to have a wonderful mentor in Brian Smith of Oyster River Winegrowers, who has been growing hybrids in Maine for fifteen years, but aside from his tutelage, there isn’t much vine-growing mentorship in my region. Our grape-growing community here is not so robust yet. Embracing Hybrid Grapes felt like a place where we could bond around this experience of growing fruit with a history the mainstream wine world largely forgot, one we’re rediscovering together.
The future of hybrid grapes in California
Most of the conference covered the why around hybrids. If you are able to grow Pinot Noir, Sangiovese, even Albariño in California, why would a grower choose hybrids? Why would a winemaker? Two pillars seem to stand out: environmental and cultural.
Growing hybrids can be gentler on the environment. They’re often hardier, more resilient, and need less intervention. In many regions, they’re easier to grow without synthetic chemicals and typically require fewer passes with organic fungicides and other sprays. Why does this matter? Even organic amendments aren’t completely harmless. Copper and sulfur fungicides and some botanical insecticides can be toxic to people and ecosystems and in tough years can be applied as frequently as every week. There’s an environmental and human cost to growing grapes commercially. Why wouldn’t we try to minimize it?
Culturally, native and hybrid grapes have been part of American wine history since at least the 1700s. Enslaved Black workers at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello property planted and grew both native grapes and vinifera varieties. Hybrids are crossed with those native American grapes—the ones you see climbing trees by woods or on the side of the road, happy as a clam without any human pruning, pulling, or hedging. The hybrid Alexander was a spontaneous cross between vinifera and labrusca species, discovered around 1740 near Philadelphia. This country has over fifteen native grape species, and over 100 wine-focused hybrid varieties growing commercially. Maybe the real question isn’t ‘Should we be growing hybrids?’ but ‘Should we be growing vinifera?’
Imagining a hybrid driven future
I’ve listened to several interviews with the 1960s and 1970s cohort of Oregon winemakers, speaking animatedly about those early days of wine community. There was an energy there. People were helping one another, leaning on one another, experimenting, having fun. These were dedicated growers and producers who knew they had stumbled upon something truly special, something that would change the American wine landscape forever. They were right. We are in that kind of moment today with hybrids, and it has been a long time coming. Hybrid grapes are an unstoppable force. As Elaine Chukan Brown says, “hybrids are problem solvers.” Not only that, they’re a part of our history, a part of our American winemaking landscape.
Hybrids get us closer to our local farming community. If you extol the virtues of your local farmer’s market, look for organic produce whenever you can, participate in your CSA, or love to see a farmer’s name on your restaurant menu—why are you only drinking Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand? If you support your local organic farmers, they will thrive and be able to grow healthy food with low environmental impact. We can do the same for our winemakers and grapegrowers. Wine is an agricultural product. It will thrive if we let it.
Ready to give these wines a try? Here are some of my favorite makers: La Garagista, La Montañuela, Chëpika, Wild Arc, American Wine Project, North American Press, Dear Native Grapes, Iapetus, Marzae. There are of course, many more. If you’re interested to learn more about hybrids, pick up The Wines of California by Elaine Chukan Brown, Grapes of the Hudson Valley by Stephen Casscles, and A History of Wine in America by Thomas Pinney. A big thank you to the Embracing Hybrid Grapes organizers, Adam Huss and Elodie Oliver. This was wonderful. I’ll see you next year.
Thanks, Margot! It's really great to hear your reflections. Good to know about Oyster River Winegrowers too.