“In the beginning was the … grape.”
At the core of understanding wine and making smart choices about what to drink with what you eat is learning about grape varietals. “Varietal” is winespeak for the name of the grape.
So let’s take a little test. How many grapes can you name?
What we learn from a hot new encyclopedic wine book simply called Wine Grapes is that there are 1,368 different grapes growing around the globe. But not to worry — we’re only going to focus on the big three whites this month.
What controls how a wine tastes? This is a very complicated question that involves where vines are planted, and the numerous choices open to the winemaker as the grapes are ripening and later being fermented and aged. But the essential flavors start with the grape.
For your purposes as a wine consumer, we are going to begin with the white grapes Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, and Chardonnay. Once you understand each grape’s inherent flavor profile, you’ll expand your palate and appreciate the variations available to you.
Before we look at characteristics of the individual grape varietals, let’s clear up one confusing aspect for those of you who are relatively new to wine. New world wines (USA, Australia, etc.) tend to list their grape varietal name prominently on the label, while old world wines (Europe) denote geography and don’t mention the grape.
So here are two simple grape equations for you to learn: white Burgundy equals Chardonnay, and white Bordeaux means Sauvignon Blanc. These are generalities that largely hold true, but as you’ll learn, most rules have some exceptions.
Now, let’s look at the big three white wine grapes in descending order of weight.
Riesling is one of the world’s great wines; the grapes express the geography of where they are planted and also produce wines at a wide range of sweetness levels. The wines tend to be low in alcohol (light) but high in acidity, which is an important element in cleansing your palate; hence, they are almost uniformly great food wines. Rieslings display strong aromas, which are referred to as the “nose” in wine jargon. Depending on where they are grown, these can be floral, fruity, mineral and/or spicy.
The wines are labeled in five ascending levels of price and sweetness from kabinett (light, semi-dry) to trockenbeerenauslese or TBA (pricey and very sweet dessert wine). As I mentioned in last month’s homework, they’re great with spicy food because the sweetness and acidity provide balance to the salt and heat, but the acidity also works well with high-fat food like pork/ham, or cheese.
Sauvignon Blanc is light to medium bodied with good acidity. The flavors range from herbal/grassy to citrusy with New Zealand wines showing distinct grapefruit flavors. Winemakers often mix different batches of juice to produce a specific flavor mix. Imagine creating a new soda combining Sprite, Ginger Ale and Mountain Dew so that you’ve got the characteristics of each in the proportion that is most pleasing. Sauvignon Blanc is the only choice for asparagus, and also matches well with chicken and seafood that’s poached or lightly grilled, plus shellfish and fresh herbal dishes.
Chardonnay is medium to full bodied, with richness and complexity. It is often aged in oak barrels that add buttery or vanilla notes to the orchard and tropical fruit flavors (apple, pear, pineapple, mango) that stand out in an unoaked version. While the oaky wines from California are great to drink alone, they are a bad match for most food except lobster or fish/chicken in a rich cream or butter sauce. The exception is white Burgundy that has great acidity and balance and is totally unaffordable — often $100 and up. Because of its weight, Chardonnay is sometimes called a white wine pretending to be red.
Until next month, try tasting all three varietals at a similar price point from the same region, e.g. $15 California wines, with the different foods suggested above. Always taste the wine first and then see how food changes it.
NEXT MONTH: Red wine grapes
This article appears in Mar 28 – Apr 3, 2013.