Did you know? . . . Blended Wines

Americans like their wines label by the varietal. If we don’t know the grape as soon as we look at the name, we consider it a cheap drink. But French wines embrace the blending of grapes, as a way to control style. This is epitomized by Champagne, a wine that is always a blend of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Petit Meunier. This is done so that the Champagne house can guarantee identical flavor from year to year, despite seasonal variations in the individual varietals. For other wines, its a way to augment the grapes, allowing a winemaker to avoid a “donut wine”--a wine with obvious holes in the flavor and body of the wine. Consider this time Bordeaux wine--wine made from a blend of grapes produced in the Bordeaux region in France. A blend lets a winemaker select the best elements from a range of grapes, and play to the strength of each, creating a better overall wine.  Like Champagne, this will allow for a more consistent wine from year to year, and gives you a better idea of what the wine will be like, even if you don’t know the particulars of the vintage year.