04/20/07 New Favorite

Welcome to Vine to Wine this is your host Linda Moran, and as most of you know, my new favorite wine is usually the wine that is in my glass at the time. I personally think the early American winemakers did us a very big disservice by naming some of their lesser quality wines after the famous wine regions of France, such as Chablis and Burgundy. It created an impression that this name was synonymous with a lower quality product. How shocked were we when we discovered what a nice restaurant was charging for a great French Chablis. Well a similar thing is happening now that U.S. wine makers are creating more blended wines and the varietal names are disappearing from the labels, replaced by proprietary names. I am astonished at the number of consumers who believe that a label reading red table wine should be less expensive than a label named for a single varietal. As I mention in a program earlier this week, in order for a wine to be named by the varietal the wine has to be produced using no less than 75% of that named grape. So a wine that is heavily crafted by intense blending of differing grape varietals and grapes with differing vineyard origins is one that extra time and attention was invested. So it stands to reason that it would cost more. But because of the law and the less than 75% rule it has to labeled red table wine. Those red table wines are my new favorite wines. Remember to send your wine questions to Linda at vine to wine dot net and thank you for joining me on today's Vine to Wine.