Weird grape spotlight: Delaware and Concord from Chëpìka (Or: Why hybrids deserve another look)

Image credit: Andrew Triska

If you’ve been to the Finger Lakes—or, really, any of the cold places in North America where hybrid grapes are popular—you probably ended up tasting a great number of wines that could generously be called “fun.” They’re often fruity, oversweet, and simple, like alcoholic grape juice. Hybrids don’t exactly have a reputation for complexity or variation in style. Once in a while, though, something magical happens.

Chëpìka is a wine project from sommelier Pascaline Lepeltier and winemaker Nathan Kendall. When I picked up bottles of Chëpìka’s Delaware Pet-Nat and Concord Nouveau wines, I found something that totally reset my expectations for hybrid wines. I’ll give you my tasting notes in a moment, but first, let me give you some brief notes on what hybrid grapes are and why this moment in wine history is important.

What’s a hybrid?

A bunch of hybrid grapes of the Delaware variety. Image credit: Bio06940 on Wikimedia Commons. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Skip this section if you’re a hybrid enthusiast. Anyway: the vast majority of wines are made from Vitis vinifera, the European wine grape. This grape comes in many varieties, which aren’t separate species but different mutations of the same species. In other words, Cabernet Sauvignon and Pinot Grigio are the same grape, regardless of how different they might taste.

North America has many wild species of grapes in the Vitis genus. We’ll call these “native grapes.” Early European colonists often attempted to make these grapes into wine, and though they sometimes produced drinkable wine on a small scale, the wine was generally thought to be sour, unpleasant, and inferior to European vinifera wines. This resulted in massive, expensive, and often doomed efforts to grow vinifera grapes on the Eastern Seaboard so the colonies didn’t have to import wine. These vineyards tended to fail because vinifera vines couldn’t tolerate cold and were susceptible to diseases that native grapes resisted.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, winegrowers began to develop hybrids between vinifera and native grapes, such as the Alexander and Norton varieties. Early hybrids were accidents, with vinifera vines from planted vineyards spontaneously crossing with native ones. Winegrowers soon found that these hybrids delivered the flavor and sugar content of vinifera along with the hardiness and cold tolerance of native grapes. With hybrids, the Eastern U.S. was finally able to establish a successful large-scale domestic wine industry.

Why aren’t more wines made with hybrid grapes?

In short, hybridizers haven’t been able to completely erase the distinctive flavor of native grapes. You know that Welch’s grapey-grape flavor (a.k.a. the stuff they use to flavor grape soda and gum)? That characteristic flavor is the result of chemicals like methyl anthranilate, which are present in high levels in native grapes but not in European vinifera grapes. The aroma is often referred to as a “foxy” odor.

Is that a bad thing? Not at all. But it’s different from the typical flavor of European wine. The wine market is slow to change, and for many drinkers, especially outside North America, unfamiliar equals bad. As a result, many hybrid winemakers choose to downplay their wines’ hybrid-ness, creating wines in familiar European styles and using winemaking techniques that mask foxy flavors. And many others are pulling up hybrids altogether now that vineyard technology makes it easier to grow cold-tolerant vinifera varieties like Riesling and Cabernet Franc, even in areas that aren’t optimal for European grapes.

The pressure to conform isn’t unique to hybrids. Plenty of ink has been spilled about the homogenization of wine and the resulting eradication of unique local winemaking techniques and indigenous grapes around the world. Sadly, it’s not easy to sell wine that departs radically from the norm, especially in an economy where consumers are watching every penny and hesitate to risk their scant luxury budget on something new and strange.

What’s Chëpìka doing differently?

Image credit: Andrew Triska

When I tasted Chëpìka’s offerings, I was struck by how well they managed to straddle the boundary between “fun” and “serious.” On one hand, they’re light-bodied, refreshing, inexpensive, pleasantly grapey, and come in unpretentious screwcap packaging. On the other hand, they’re dry, complex, and impeccably balanced. Most importantly, the winemaking showcases the grapes’ best features without trying to wrestle them into a European shape.

The 2022 Chëpìka Concord* Nouveau ($20) poured a medium candy-purple. The nose is intensely Concord and immediately puts me in mind of cold grape juice after school. Unlike that grape juice, though, it’s bone dry. Then you get a teeny bit of volatile acidity and a hint of herbaceousness. It’s got a barely-noticeable petillance. The acidity is bright and refreshing, and the tannins have a little bit of crunch, which is nice in a nouveau. It’s fruity on the palate, but not overripe or unrestrained. There’s a pureness and cleanness to it, even an austerity. Drink it chilled.

The 2021 Chëpìka Delaware* Pet-Nat ($30) poured a medium, slightly cloudy lemon-gold. With grape and green apple on the nose and an aggressive fizz, it’s dry and—like the Concord—a bit austere. It finishes with ginger, yeast, and touch of phenolic bitterness. Like the Concord, it’s best chilled.

You can purchase both of these wines at VinoShipper. If you’re local to New York, you can get them at 67 Wine and Spirits.

*For the curious, the Delaware grape is a 19th century hybrid of Vitis vinifera, Vitis labrusca, and Vitis aestevalis. The ubiquitous purple Concord (of Welch’s fame), selected from over 22,000 seedlings by 19th century vintner Ehpram Wales Bull, was originally thought to be a Vitis labrusca cultivar but was later found to be part vinifera.

Further reading

The Cultivation of the Native Grape, and Manufacture of American Wines, George Husmann, 1866 (available for free on Google Books)

A History of Wine in America, Thomas Pinney, 1989 (available for free on UC Press E-Books Collection)