10/17/07 Understanding Wine Labels

Welcome to Vine to Wine this is your host Linda Moran. Perusing a display of wine can get a bit confusing, because very often the labels don't tell us much that the average person would understand. On today's program we'll talk about the wine label. The art and science of winemaking came to most of the new world from Europe. And in Europe the tradition was to name wines for their geographic origin. For example Burgundy, Chablis, Chianti and Rioja are all the names of places. So the only way you'd know what's in a French Chablis, is to know that Chardonnay is the white grape that is grown there. I personally think American winemakers did a very big disservice to us by naming some of their lesser quality wines after the famous wine regions of France, such as Chablis and Burgundy. Our impression was that this name was synonymous with a lower quality product. How shocked were we when we discovered what a restaurant was charging for a great French Chablis. On the other hand I think the new wine world of North and South America, Australia and South Africa did us a favor labeling most of their wines with the variety of grape the wine is primarily made from - such as Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon and Pinot Noir etc. We have become somewhat familiar with the names of grapes and that helps to develop our comfort with wine and discovering the wines that appeal to us. Understanding wine labels is a topic for many shows to come and we'll discuss it a bit further on tomorrow's program. 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.