I lost the picture of this bottle, so here is the 2004 vintage label. It was the same for the 2007 vintage.

Appellation: Lehigh Valley (Pennsylvania)
Grape: Chambourcin (pronounced sham-bor-SAN with that uppity French nasal “in” sound)
ABV: not determined (labeled “table wine”), but given Brix at harvest, I would guess around 13%
Price Point: $16
Closure: Natural cork

Technical Notes: {Brix} at harvest: 23.5-24. pH: 3.95, TA 6 g/L after malolactic fermentation and stabilization with potassium carbonate. Destemmed, pumped into bins and inoculated. Extended maceration (3 weeks) with punchdowns. 16 months in Hungarian oak. (Thanks to Pinnacle Ridge owner Brad Knapp for the detailed info!)

Hedonic Notes:
Pours a dark ruby red. Whoof, smoky oak on the nose. A little {heat}, with some raspberry fruit. There is just the slightest sulfur off-aroma on the nose, like opening a hard boiled egg. In the mouth, light and fruity if a bit thin, with slight {astringency}. It’s got a very short finish, but acidity lingers long after. When I approached this wine the second day, it was already badly {oxidized}, which I would attribute to some Acetobacter. The relatively high pH of this wine (close to 4) makes it susceptible to spoilage in the presence of oxygen.

Rating: 2 out of 5 corks .

Chambourcin is promoted highly on the Lehigh Valley Wine Trail as its signature grape. If you know the hybrids produced up in the Finger Lakes, then Chambourcin may not be as familiar as Cayuga White, Seyval, Foch and others. That’s because it’s not grown extensively in the Finger Lakes.

In terms of hybrids, Chambourcin is not well-suited for the Finger Lakes because it is relatively cold-tender, with tissue damage occuring anywhere from 0 F to -5 F (compare to DeChaunac’s -15F). Pennsylvania, especially the southeast corner, is warmer than New York, with fewer extremely cold days and more frost-free days, so it’s a bit of a safer environment for Chambourcin vines.

Chambourcin is one of few hybrid grapes that still exists in France, along with Baco Noir, Seyval Blanc, and a handful of others that survived the Order 66-like purge of American hybrids from France in the mid-20th century. It’s predominantly found in the Loire Valley, but you won’t find it in any of the top-quality AOC wines, at least not legally. It turns out that this grape is handy to have around, though, since it produces monoglucoside anthocyanins. Why is this important?

Example of a vinifera anthocyanin, with a sugar in the 3- position. Diglycosylated anthocyanins also have a sugar in the 5- position. Figure "borrowed" from G. Sacks, Cornell University.

Red hybrids are generally high in anthocyanins, the compounds that give red wine its color. Often, these have sugar groups conjugated to them to improve solubility. Many hybrid varieties add TWO sugar groups, creating diglycoside anthocyanins. Vinifera grapes only add one sugar, leading to monoglucoside anthocyanins. The test for mono vs. diglucoside anthocyanins is relatively simple (thin layer chromatography, or TLC) and can be used to determine if a wine has been “adulterated” with “inferior” hybrid grapes (e.g., unfit for AOC classification). However, since Chambourcin’s anthocyanins are monoglycosylated, they are difficult to distinguish from those of European vinifera grapes, at least at first pass. So, if you were a French winemaker and your wine needed a little color, for example…. ah, perhaps I have said too much.

Further Reading:
Wine Business Monthly overview of Chambourcin
Detailed info on Chambourcin from Iowa State
Article from the New York Cork Report on the connection between mono- and diglycosides and foxy aroma
Review of more-advanced wine adulteration analysis: García-Beneytez et al., “Analysis of Grape and Wine Anthocyanins by HPLC-MS”, J. Ag. Food Chem., 2003.