Noah

Noah is a white American hybrid. J. Roy-Chevrier, writing in Pierre Viala and Victor Vermorel’s Ampélographie (1901 to 1910), records it as a seedling of Taylor raised in 1869 by Otto Wasserzieher of Nauvoo, Illinois; DNA markers recorded in VIVC confirm Taylor as one parent, the other unknown. In the Gironde the earliest record in my library is the 1881 International Phylloxera Congress in Bordeaux, which found Noah already fairly well known in M. Piola’s collection at Condat near Libourne. On November 29, 1883, the viticulture section of the Gironde agricultural society tasted American wines, gave marks of 16 and 17 to Piola’s Noah of 1881 and 1882 from the palus, and declared that “among the white grapes shown, it is Noah that produces the best wine” («parmi les cépages blancs exposés, c’est le Noah qui produit le meilleur vin»).

Roy-Chevrier explained the welcome: in the damp, lime-free gravels of the Graves its foxy taste faded into a kinship with the musky bouquet of Sauvignon. The society’s vice-president, M. Froidefond, already doubted its staying power against phylloxera in 1884. In 1893 Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, whose Bordeaux et ses vins was the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, recorded Noah and Othello as direct producers used to replace the enrageat, their very alcoholic white wine giving excellent brandy. Noah served as a rootstock too: the same 1893 edition recorded M. A. Nibaut’s white vineyard at Auros, sémillon and sauvignon grafted on riparia, noah, and viala, and the 1922 edition repeats it.

Oldest record in my library: Compte rendu général du Congrès international phylloxérique de Bordeaux, 1881