Mudgee winery embroiled in grape mix-up

 A Mudgee winery has been caught up in confusion over a variety of white wine grapes found to have been mis-labelled in Australia.

Mansfield Wines was the first in the Mudgee district to plant what it thought was the Spanish albarino variety.

However, grapes tested in South Australia by the CSIRO were found to be savagnin blanc.

The winery's cellar manager, Malcolm McLellan, says the mix-up is extremely disappointing.

"The variety itself has got such a great name within the actual wine industry itself, it was something that I was hoping they'd have everything right because there's so much talk about it in the industry not only in Australia, but worldwide. It's something we were really banking on to bring to the market and be the first growers in the area," he said.

He says Mansfield harvested a small crop of the albarino this year which was frost affected, and used the grapes in a blend.

Mr McLellan says it would explain why the plants did not grow as vigorously as expected.

"We've told a number of our customers that we had albarino in the ground and we would probably be producing wine either 2009 or 2010, so it's a bit of a disappointment for us because we've basically gone out and told people that's what we had planted," he said.

Mr McLellan says the family owned company will now consider DNA testing the vines.

However, he says it would still be the first planting of savagnin blanc in the area which is probably rarer than albarino.

"We got our source stock from South Australia which is the area where it's been talked about where the variety has been 'DNAed', but again yes we would definitely look at getting [it] DNAed, but it is the same root stock I would say as the one that's already been identified," he said.