Varietal Character
Michurinetz
You are a character from another era. Comrad Michurinetz you may not know it, but the cold war is long over. From your home in Russia you infiltrated North America through Nova Scotia...a most unlikely place...some might think! There you made your contact with the eccentric socialist professor, himself recently infiltrated from the revolutionary place called Berkeley in California...a man possessing similar complexity and inscrutable intelligence. In the 1980s the combination of this soldier's faith and your ecological strength proved to be a very formidable combination for the progressive peoples struggle on the viticultural front. Your combined vision took Canada to new level...your partnership won acclaim from Department External Affairs as ' best wine of the nation'...is like Stalin-prize for wine!
Appellations Growing Michurinetz Grapes
Appellations producing the most Michurinetz wines:
Michurinetz Grape Details
Michurinetz
This vine, at home in Eastern Europe, is a Vitis vinifera and Vitis Amurensis hybrid. The grape is now being grown experimentally in the Finger Lakes region of New York State and British Columbia, but has already established resounding commercial status in Nova Scotia. In Nova Scotia during the 1980s, Michurinetz, marketed as Cuvee D'Amur, produced gold medals at the premier Bristol and New York competitions for Roger Dial's Grand Pré Winery. Grand Pré's 1983 Cuvée D'Amour shocked the Canadian Wine Press when, not only a wine from Nova Scotia, but a wine made from a little known Russian varietal was voted the 'best wine of Canada' in a blind competition to supply the Canadian Embassies around the world. More recently two other Nova Scotia wineries, Jost Vineyards and Sainte Famille, are making notable wines with Michurinetz. This extremely cold-hardy and vigorous vine typically produces red wines with tannic muscularity. The grapes also typically have extremely high natural acidity, and low sugar levels which can be problematic in cool vintages. However Dial and others have proven that the grape given the right treatment in the winery can produce complex and long-lived red wines.