Carignan Wine Style: None. Flavors: Origin: Rhone in France Found: France, Spain, Italy and California It’s also known as Carinena and Mazuelo in Spain, Gragnano in Italy, Carignane in California. The berries are bluish-black, round and fairly large, with fairly thick, astringent skins. They hang in large, rather compact clusters that are short-stemmed, difficult to harvest, and susceptible to grape worms. They [...]
Carménère Wine Style: A full-bodied wine with lots of fruits, spices, berries, smokes and earth best enjoyed young. Flavors: Origin: Chile Found: Chile only Carmenère is yet another grape that was eventually exiled from the Bordeaux blend. In the late 1800’s, Carmenère was brought over to Chile from France, and it never turned back. For a while, Chilean growers thought this [...]
Cava Wine Style: It is usually fruity and pleasantly acidic. Flavors: Cava is rarely popular in Asian wine circles. Moreever, the three most commonly used grapes don’t AGE well, yet Cava DO rules require a minimum aging of 9 months. This means that many of these wines are dull and bland with an earthy character-they should be drunk as [...]
Champagne (Blend) Wine Style: Light, fresh, toasty to yeasty, and dry to sweet. Flavors: Beside some comment on Citrus and yeast flavors, the sweetness varies from Extra Brut (at most 0.6% sugar) to Doux (more than 5% sugar). Champagne is considered one of the most food friendly wines and accompanies most fine foods. Origin: Champagne in France Found: France only. Other countries: Cava (Spain), [...]
Chardonnay Wine Style: Chardonnay is from light to medium to fuller-bodied wines. Cooler climate Chardonnays sees an abundance of fruit flavors, especially white fruits. Warmer Chardonnays see lesser fruits, perhaps more honey, vanilla and roasted flavors. Chablis: Lean, sometimes stony white wine made in the Chablis region at north of Burgundy in Eastern France. Flavors include gunflint [...]
Châteauneuf-du-Pape (Blend) Wine Style: Often big, rich, full-bodied with spicy and raspberries flavors with capability for 5 to 20 bottle aging. Flavors: Origin: Rhone Valley in France Found: California, Australia, and France The vast majority of wines from the Southern Rhône are blends. There are 5 main black varieties, although others are used and the [...]
Chenin Blanc Wine Style: A light to medium-bodied pleasant wine, with melon, peach, spice and citrus. Flavors: Origin: Loire Valley in France Found: Vouvray, Anjou, Quarts de Chaume, Saumer (Loire Valley) in France, South Africa, Australia and California An important white grape variety planted in the Anjou-Saumur and Touraine regions of the Loire Valley and the most widely planted [...]