When you live in wine country you become accustomed to the use of grape varietal names. The modern wine drinker probably forgets that for a long time wine names were codes for a blend, simply because most wines were blends. You rarely saw a pure Chardonnay from France. Instead that blend of Chardonnay, Pinot Blanc and maybe a little sweet Moscato was called a white Burgundy. A red Burgundy from France was mostly Pinot Noir, maybe several selections of that, and whatever else they needed to make the blend come out right.
Today when Napa pours a Cabernet Sauvignon it usually has a small amount of Merlot, or Cabernet Franc added to soften the edges of that muscular grape. What the British drank in the past would have included some mix of the five Bordeaux reds, Cab Sauv, Merlot, Cab Franc, Petite Verdot and Malbec and they would call that a Claret.
When the California jug wine producers set out for a larger percentage of the market share they came up with the name ‘Hearty Burgundy’. It rarely had Pinot Noir in it, that troublesome grape was just too hard to grow. Instead it would be a mix of various local red grapes including Zinfandel, Petite Sirah, Grenache, Syrah and whatever eslse was going for a good price that year.
A white wine is one that goes into the press directly from the vineyards, where it is separated from the skins. With a red wine the grapes are dumped whole into the tanks (with premium grapes they are taken off the stems, washed and sorted before they go in). Then they ferment altogether while the skins are punched down into the juice to extract their colors and flavors. After fermentation, with the free sunning juice drained, the skins are pressed.
Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Pinot Blanc, Moscato, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Petite Verdot, Malbec, Syrah (also known as Shiraz in Australia), Zinfandel, Petite Syrah are all the names of grapes, and there are thousands more. Even these very well known grapes have alternative local names, and within the names they have varieties, also known as clones.
In grape growing a Clone is the result of a random vine mutating, successfully. In other words, that strange little cane that popped up on the vine produced an interesting flavor. They will cut that off, root it and propagate it. Many of California’s most popular Pinot Noir are called the Dijon clone (Like the mustard) because that was the city’s name on the return address on the boxes it arrived in.
One of the great marketing differences between Europe and California stems from their respective weather. Europe often names the wine by the region because it is made from a group of varietals from that area blended together, in various proportions, to get a consistent product. The blends will vary year to year because the weather is often unkind to one grape or another. Where Bordeaux might get two good years out of ten, Napa gets seven. That’s another reason the French seem to hate us. In Napa, and in fact, in much of the California wine country, getting the grapes properly ripened is not normally a problem, so the individual grape varietals can produce a wonderful wine all on their own. So we name them for the grape.
In the past a wine drinker rarely knew the names of the grapes that went into their glass, today many people feel confident asking for a Cabernet Sauvignon, even in a bar in front of a pretty girl. Of course if you’re worried, ask for a Merlot, it’s easier to pronounce and one of the reasons it continues to be so popular.
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