Move over grapes, this is the unexpected ingredient found in the trendiest wine right now

Strolling through the southern most reaches of Finland, pine trees reach as far as the eyes can see. On the ground, thickets of wild blueberries cover every inch. At first glance, it appears as untouched, wild nature, but in fact, these are the vineyards of the future.

The Nordic region – known for its jagged coastlines, cold climates, and sprawling forests – is home to a virtually endless supply of berries, and a new generation of winemakers is harvesting this native treasure. Among them is Finland’s Ainoa Winery. Located in Hollola, in the southern Päijänne Tavastia region, the winery was founded by David Cohen, a biotechnology engineer recruited to Finland for work, and his partner Paola Guerrero de Cohen. Winemaking had been a hobby of Cohen’s when he was living in the US, but it wasn’t util the couple moved to Finland and started experimenting with local ingredients that it became something more. It turned out that the cold, harsh climate had one noticeable upside: it yielded exceptional berries.

“The weather was a bit of a shock for us, but for the berries it’s great,” says Guerrero. “They ripen late, imparting a satisfying acidity with a light sweetness and plenty of aromas – the perfect building blocks for a fantastic wine.” The duo wasted no time testing a range of berries, quick ly discover ing that the Finnish blueberries, raspberries, lingonberries and bilberries – like a blueberry, but softer, with a more intense flavour – all made for an extraordinary beverage. “It is quite similar to grapes,” says Cohen. “The key to great wine is great fruit. Some of the finest grapes in the world are grown in France – but the Nordic region has the best berries in the world.”

One of the world's oldest beverages, wine has been intertwined with the history of grape cultivation dating back more than 8,000 years. Simply put, wine is the result of fermented fruits: you place grapes in a barrel, leave them there for a number of days, and voilà, you have wine. With their natural balance of acidity, water and sugar, grapes are ideal for winemaking. Berries, on the other hand, are much harder to ferment, granting them an unsavoury reputation in the wine community.

Fruit winemakers like Aiona Winery are working to change that. As Cohen ex plains, the process differs slightly for every wine, however most fruit wines are produced using similar techniques to red wine, which means that the fermentation of the berries is conducted with the skin. The main discrepancy involves sugar. The process of adding sugar to unfermented grapes is called chaptalisation. Named for its inventor, the French chemist Jean-Antoine Chaptal, the procedure’s additional sugar spurs the yeast to ferment into alcohol, increasing the alcohol content of the wine. While the chaptalisation of grape wine is illegal in many regions, it is a required process for berry wines, necessary to yield the alcohol content typical of the beverage.

Though there have been small, unassuming wineries in Finland for two decades, no one has at - tempted to turn berry wine into a prestige product. When Cohen and Guerrero initially attempted gett to sell their wines domestically, the response was less than enthusiastic; the market didn’t yet exist. Instead, they began to think globally, entering international competitions with traditional wines from all over the world.

“We needed a reality check. Did we fool ourselves to think we are. making good wines? Turns out we had actually underestimated them,” says Cohen. The couple’s five berry wines – Sametti, Vaapukka, Kuningatar, Suven Taika, and Aho – were all granted gold medals in competitions run by the finicky oenologists of France. What’s more, Ainoa’s berry wines are the only berry wines ever to be granted this honour. In the Nordics, Ainoa hardly stands alone. The north of Sweden has a rich histor y of berry winemaking dating back to the 1600s. Historically, it was common to make solar wine – or, ‘sun wine’ – out of blueberries, with the heat from the sunlight serving as a catalyst for fermentation. However, the technique was as difficult to control as the weather and the product varied in sweetness and acidity.

Today, Swedish winemakers are refining the process with modern technology and a sommelier’s exacting standards. Like many Nordic winemakers, Li Holmberg and Lars Normark of Idunn Wine are self-taught enthusiasts. Growingup , Nor mark’s mother made sun wine at home . “My mother always had a couple of bottles standing by the summer house window in autumn,” says Normark, noting that her sun wine recipe consisted simply of “freshly picked wild blueberries, water and some sugar.” “While the sun shined on the bottles, one could see the blueberries dancing up and down.” The resulting beverage was simple and sweet, albeit a little unpredictable.

Holmberg and Normark began playing around with the idea of making a more refined blue berry wine. Since the Nordic berries are small, the amount of peel in each batch is large, yet it is the skin of the berry that contains the tannins, the complex substance that gives wine its structure. With this in mind, the duo wanted to apply science and art to the age-old tradition of winemaking with the lofty vision of producing the wine of the future.

In the autumn of 2012, a year which, incidentally, yielded a record number of blueberries, Normark prepared his first batch of blueberry wine at home in the small village of Rålund. Considering that his laboratory was a laundry room, the experiment turned out quite well, producing a beverage he aptly named Rålund. “Our first batch of Rålund Classic was much like a youthful red wine made of pinot noir, with a hint of voil, blueberry and vanilla,” says Normark . Today, Idunn Wine produces around 35,000 bottles annually in a modern facility in Norsjö – six cuvées, four blueberry red wines, one raspberry and blueberry aperitif and one lingonberry rosé – all available at Systembolaget, the Swedish liquor store chain.

With iPad in hand, Normark gives a tour of his winery via Zoom. Oak barrels sweep by, un-labelled bottles and steel tanks engulf the screen. Most of them contain the lingonberry rosé Bergskär – they are currently producing 300 per cent more than the previous year. “It’s my favourite,” notes Holmberg. “It tastes bright, elegant and complex. It has a beautiful pink glow, like the midnight sunlight.” After a tough period for the restaurant industry, local products are increasingly in demand. Add to that the sustainability benefits of sourcing ingredients locally and you have a market cracked wide open for berry wines. There’s plenty of supply to meet this demand; only five per cent of berries that grow in the forest are picked or eaten by wild animals. This means that each year, the vast majority of this natural resource dies on the vine – un - tapped stock waiting to be fermented and enjoyed.

Given the availability of untouched berries, it is extremely unlikely that berry winemakers will ever run out of their key ingredients. Still, they also have the unique option of producing their beverage from frozen berries. This way, the quality of their product is always high, even when nature yields a suboptimal harvest. It also means wineries like Idunn can produce their product all year round. Meanwhile, winemakers using grapes are typically operational just a few weeks a year, during harvest season. ”From a health perspective, it’s also more beneficial to use frozen blueberries,” explains Holmberg. “Once the berries are picked they start degrading in nutrients. The antioxidants and vitamins are well-kept – this improves the taste.”

As international interest in Scandinavian berry wines continues to rise, new wineries and vineyards are popping up across the north. Sommeliers have lovingly dubbed the product ‘ forest pinot noir ’. Simultaneously, winemakers in traditional regions are facing challenges, most notably via that existential beast: climate change. Over the last few years, wineries have had to start the har vest earlier and earlier. If the average temperature increases by another 1.5 degrees, the wine regions in Bourgogne and Bordeaux will begin to yield wine akin to that in the Mediterranean.

Eventually, rising temperatures could harm the berries as well. In 2018, a particularly dry summer yielded a poor harvest for both blueberries and lingonberries. Nonetheless, Holmberg is optimistic about the future. “With the expansion of grape and fruit vineyards in the Nordic region, Scandinavia could very well become t he new Napa Valley,” she says. “There is an abundance of berries to freeze and take care of. We may be the underdogs today, but we are the future of the wine world.”

As international interest in Scandinavian berry wines continues to rise, new wineries and vineyards are popping up across the north. Sommeliers have lovingly dubbed the product ‘ forest pinot noir ’. Simultaneously, winemakers in traditional regions are facing challenges, most notably via that existential beast: climate change. Over the last few years, wineries have had to start the har vest earlier and earlier. If the average temperature increases by another 1.5 degrees, the wine regions in Bourgogne and Bordeaux will begin to yield wine akin to that in the Mediterranean.

Eventually, rising temperatures could harm the berries as well. In 2018, a particularly dry summer yielded a poor harvest for both blueberries and lingonberries. Nonetheless, Holmberg is optimistic about the future. “With the expansion of grape and fruit vineyards in the Nordic region, Scandinavia could very well become t he new Napa Valley,” she says. “There is an abundance of berries to freeze and take care of. We may be the underdogs today, but we are the future of the wine world.”