Image Credits: globetrotter1937
One of the most widely-planted white wine grapes on the face of the planet, Trebbiano is sadly better known for its quantity than its quality. The grape variety, which is native to Italy, is a favourite among wine makers across the globe thanks to its high yields and ease of cultivation, but you would be hard pressed to find a white wine enthusiast that really rated a bottle made from this much maligned of grapes. The Trebbiano grape vine is tough and resilient, yielding thick-skinned grapes that are relatively resistant to disease and that can adapt well to many different climates.
Whilst Trebbiano wines can be festively fruity when young, they don’t lend themselves well to ageing and as such this is not a wine for anyone looking for a quality addition to their wine cellar. However, aside from being used in the making of many a bottle of unremarkable white wine, the Trebbiano grape’s high acidity levels have also made it a popular grape for use in the making of cognac.
The grape goes by a number of synonyms, of which Ugni Blanc is probably the most commonly used. It was under this name that the grape made its way from Bologna, Italy to France during the 14th Century, although it is thought to have been cultivated in its native region since Roman times. Today, this well-travelled white wine grape has made itself at home everywhere from the Old World wine producing nations such as Italy, France and Spain to the New World wine regions of Australia, Argentina and Chile, to name just a few.
It has been particularly successful in Argentina, where it is thought to have arrived with Italian immigrants during colonial times. Whilst it has been widely planted in Australia, notably in the south of the country and in New South Wales, it has been largely disregarded for wine-production purposes, instead being widely used in the production of brandy. It is occasionally used to produce what could be politely dubbed ‘table wine’ or impolitely dubbed ‘cheap plonk’, but Australian winemakers do not tend to treat Trebbiano as a serious white wine grape. In California it is a similar story, with Trebbiano grapes being used in many a blended white wine but very rarely being considered worthy of a single grape wine.
The grape has been seriously successful in France, however, where it is the most widely planted of all the wine loving nation’s white wine grapes. It is to be found in particular abundance along the Provencal coast and in the Gironde and Charente regions. Its French names include Queue de Renard, Clairette Ronde and Clairette de Vence, while in Corsica it is known as Rossolo and in Portugal and Bulgaria as Thalia.
Whilst it is written off as a white wine grape by many critics, its importance in brandy production should not be underrated – it is the most commonly found grape variety in the famous Cognac and Armagnac regions, under the name St Emilion.
Wines from the Trebbiano family account for almost a third of all white wine produced in Italy, where it is used as both a single grape and blended wine. The most successful blends come from the Orvieto region of Umbria, where the grape is blended with a local clone grape known as Procanico. Whilst Trebbiano wines are consumed with gusto as a table wine in Italy, however, the wines are not particularly well received internationally. The grape has a tendency to produce bland, unremarkable wines with very little character or distinction and some wine critics have even blamed the grape for a perceived ‘lacklustre quality’ in the Italian white wine market.
Some less critical wine drinkers take well to the light-bodied and relatively fresh wines, but few people would class a wine made from the Trebbiano grape as their favourite tipple. There are few standout notes or flavours to the average Trebbiano white wine, which are traditionally dry and relatively acidic. It can, however, be used as a blending grape to make some more celebrated Italian white wines, however, including Frascati. One point in the grape’s favour is that, as the wines produced have little standout flavour of their own, they are easy to match with food as there is little danger of overwhelming the dishes that are being served.
In short, then, a widely available white wine grape that is unlikely to win many real fans in the international wine world.
