Vidal Blanc (McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica)

You've never heard of McMurdo Dry Valleys, have you? Getting here was our most difficult trip of the journey thus far. We flew into Sydney, Australia and hopped a flight southeast to Christchurch, New Zealand. From there, we boarded our custom, well-heated cruise ship and headed south ... and south ... and south. Just south of the Antarctic Circle, we passed by Scott Island to our east and continued south. Passing through the Ross Sea, we finally docked at the edge of McMurdo Dry Valleys on the continent of, you guessed it, Antarctica.

This is not your traditional winemaking region, but if they make wine there, we're going to get there eventually and today is our day. 

McMurdo Dry Valleys is a strange name for this place. In fact, while much of Antarctica is a desert, this area with the word "dry" in it is one of the wettest places on the continent. Perhaps you can research, but I have no idea where the name comes from.

Almost everyone who lives in the area is a researcher. But, researchers need wine, too. Of course, there is not a whole lot that can grow here. The soil, to the extent that there is soil, is a mixture of salt and sand, incredibly basic (in contrast to acidic) in nature. Even during the middle of summer, this soil is largely permafrost, so the grapevine roots can only penetrate perhaps 10-14 inches/25-35 cm in the heart of summer. So, what do they do? The roots grow horizontally. And, of course, we need fertilizer to grow our grapes in Antarctica. Since our favorite garden stores have not made it that far south yet, we go natural and use penguin dung.

We're drinking Vidal Blanc today. We sampled this grape about three months ago, but this is going to be an entirely different experience. In Antarctica, we drink Eiswein (Ice Wine) and nothing else. The grapes are left on the vines until they freeze, usually in mid-to-late-February (remember that we are south of the equator) and then picked frozen. This will keep all the natural sugars in the grape for fermentation.

Today's wine has quite interesting notes. While it carries the natural honey and citrus notes that we expect in Vidal Blanc, we also get notes of volcanic ash and of sardines. Yes, the wine tastes a bit like particularly salty fish.

Pair your wine with local fish, pemmican (a meat and fat bar largely composed of local buffalo and deer), or sledging biscuits (a hard, nearly biscuit-like, hunk of sort of bread topped with honey and citrus marmalade).