Can you tell the difference between the taste of Viki, Birgitte, Favorite and Kelleris cherries? Probably not. But you probably know that Cabernet Sauvignon is tannic with aromas of blackcurrant. And you probably know the flavour profile of Chardonnay, Muscat and a number of other varieties of grape.

 

Denmark has a proud tradition of fruit cultivation. Our climate, with cool nights and bright summer evenings, ensures a complex flavour profile. In good years we produce some of the best fruit in the world.

 

Yet we know almost nothing about the taste of our own fruit.

 

Just take cherries as an example. Denmark boasts the world's best cherry, the Stevnsbær. That's not just according to me: it's something every cherry researcher in Denmark, Germany and France agrees.

 

Known as the 'Nordic grape' on account of its generous sugar, acid and colour, the Stevnsbær is found in orchards across Europe. No one doubts, however, that the best grow along Denmark's island coasts.

 

But this where matters begin to get complicated. There isn't one single kind of Stevnsbær, you see, but fifty to sixty varieties with similar characteristics. It seems that the research money ran out in the 1950s, at which point all the the similar varieties were lumped together under the same label: ‘Stevnsbær.'

 

Some were collected in the Danish region known as Stevns, hence the cherry's name. Some came from Skælskør, some from Langeskov on Fyn, and even the village of Løvskal in mid-Jutland supplied specimens to the Stevnsbær family.

 

But although there are great differences in climate between central Jutland and Stevns, and therefore great differences in flavour, there seems to be some reluctance to discover precisely what these differences might be.

 

In Denmark, there are basically only two Stevnsbær varieties remaining, Birgitte and Viki. Both varieties offer particularly good returns, even if nobody knows where they come from.

 

At Frederiksdal, we've been producing wines from Birgitte cherries since 2006. By now we know we get a straight, blackcurrant-saturated wine that we can compare, if we're so minded, to Cabernet Sauvignon.

 

We're certainly pleased with Birgitte, and proud of the wine. Nevertheless, Birgitte's a single variety, and we didn't use it out of choice, but because it stood in the orchard when the cherry wine project began.

 

Until we made that first wine, in other words, we didn't know what we were missing. We'd had nothing to compare to. That was our Cherry Wine v. 1.0.

 

It was a great surprise when we vinified a few tons of Viki in 2010. Although both Birgitte and Viki are Stevnsbær, the difference was huge. Viki's wine was plummy, soft in texture—reminiscent of Merlot, perhaps.

 

So we pressed on, although not without a little trepidation. What qualities remained to be discovered in the Stevnsbær line? What if the central-Jutland Løvskal evinced qualities like Nebbiolo, and Langeskov cuttings were the cherry's answer to Pinot Noir?

 

An attempt to get an overview brought us last year to Skrædderbanken, 'Tailor Bank', a small orchard on the Frederiksdal estate we designated to be our cherry archive.

 

With help from the University's fruit research center, Pometet, we gathered all the Nordic cherry varieties we could find. Today Skrædderbanken is still only half-planted, and it'll take some years before there's enough fruit for us to learn anything concrete.

 

Until then we must content ourselves with our new plantations of Stevnsbær varieties with exotic names such as Poul Eyvind and Jens Holme, Kelleris and Favorit. The latter isn't a member of the Stevnsbær family but has an exciting flavour profile and an intriguing, precarious history.

 

This year's our first harvest. Soon we'll be able to describe our cherry wine - and our knowledge - as Version 2.0