Donald Saunders

Are you baffled by the huge variety of French wines and completely lost when it comes to deciding which wine will best suit your needs?

Each of the eight wine producing regions of France specializes in producing wine of a particular type and flavor and this simple overview will hopefully make choosing French wines a little easier.

Burgundy

Burgundy wines are produced from the black Pinot Noir and Gamay grapes and from the white Chardonnay grape.

The Pinot Noir is probably one of the world’s oldest grape varieties and is notoriously difficult to grow. It does however produce some of our best wines which are full-bodied and rich and at the same time can be light, soft and velvety. Pinot noir wines often have an aroma of cherries accompanied by a spiciness that is reminiscent of cinnamon or mint.

The Chardonnay grape is a very popular grape which produces light, delicate dry wines with a distinctive but often difficult to describe aroma conjuring up a vision of apples, peaches or lemons.

Bordeaux

The wines of Bordeaux are based upon the related black Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon grapes, found particularly in the Medoc district of Bordeaux, and the black Merlot grape.

Cabernet Sauvignon wines improve greatly with age and are often amongst the world’s truly great wines. With age the distinctive blackcurrant aroma of wines from this grape develops overtones of cedar, violets and leather and the wines, which are characteristically deep in flavor, often become smooth and soft.

Wines made from the Merlot grape are very similar to those produced from the Cabernet Sauvignon grape but have a less distinctive aroma and flavor.

If it seems strange that white wines should be produced from black grapes then bear in mind that grape juice, whether from black or white grapes, is essentially colorless and it is the skin of the black grape that gives the wine its color.

Rhone

The grape varieties most often seen in the Rhone valley are the black Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah grapes and the white Muscat grape.

Syrah grapes produce intense rich wines which are almost black in color and which have an aroma that is spicy in nature. The Rhone Syrah grape forms the base for many blended wines including the well known Chateauneuf du Pape

The Muscat grape gives rise to intense, sweet wines with a strong and easily recognized aroma. In addition, and unusual for a wine, wines from the Muscat really do taste of grapes.

Loire

The grapes of the Loire include the black Pinot Noir and the white Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Gris grapes.

The Sauvignon Blanc grape is grown all over the world today and it is very widely used for blending. In the case of the Loire however it is used to make a distinctive unblended dry white wine with a characteristic sharp and aggressive smell.

Pinot Gris wines often display a slightly floral and lightly lemon flavor and, depending upon the ripeness of the grape at harvesting, wines that are either light and tangy or rich, round and full bodied. Pinot Gris makes one of the few white wines that can be said to age well.

Alsace

Although the grapes of the Alsace are similar to those used in the Loire, growing conditions in this region tend to produce wines which bear the characteristics of many German rather that French wines.

The wines in this region are similar to Riesling and the sweeter German wines. Some rosé wines are also produced in Alsace.

Champagne

The main grapes of the Champagne region are the black Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier and the white Chardonnay.

The wines of the Champagne region can best be described as thin and tart and provide the perfect base for what many believe to be the world’s finest sparkling wine.

Beaujolais

Beaujolais wines are made from the black Gamay and white Chardonnay grapes.

The wines of this region are often light in nature, fresh tasting and with a somewhat fruity flavor. Many Beaujolais wines are also slightly fizzy in nature.

About the Author:

For more information on wine and wine tasting please visit GreatWineTastings.com today. Read more articles by: Donald Saunders

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People who love wine and everything that it involves find the availability of a wine tasting tour to be a wish come true. Once upon a time this was an expensive and troublesome affair; however today with the popularity of wine growing globally and people wanting to know more and more about this elixir from grapes, a wine tasting tour is not as troublesome to organize as it was two decades ago.

What does it take to have a Perfect Wine Tasting Tour?

In order to have a trouble-free trip, your visit should be planned meticulously and carefully. This will optimize your joy and give you sufficient time to learn and connect with all that you see and hear on the wine tasting tour. So let us see what is needed usually for a wine tasting tour:

Proper planning: Always plan for a maximum of five wineries per day – two in the morning, and two to three in the afternoon. If you go for more, you will lose track of the taste and you will not be able to talk about the wine and find out its history and details. Sometimes, the details make the trip even more charming.

Arrange for a driver: While you are on the wine tasting tour you will need to swallow the wines you taste. This might make you a bit tipsy when you should not have to drive your car. Hence, always have a driver close by just in case you have a bit too much of wine to taste.

Avoid any strong odors: While on the wine tasting tour avoid wearing any strong perfumes or aftershave since any such smell will totally derail your findings on the wine you are going to taste.

Be appropriately dressed: People usually spit the wine out after tasting it. Some have learned to spit without splashing anyone. Hence, you should always wear clothes that can absorb a wine stain; don’t wear white.

By all means spit: According to the society, spitting is found to be a very gross behavior. Hence, many people find it extremely uncomfortable to spit the wine out of the mouth after tasting. Learn to accept that spitting as part of this profession; spitting will also ensure that you do not become intoxicated in the first few hours of tasting.

Follow the above points you will be assured of a fun-filled and trouble free wine tasting tour.

Jerry Powell

There are basically two parts to Wine Tasting, first is ‘What are we looking for’ the second is ‘How are we looking’. We’ll start with the How, and move on to the What.

Traditionally the seven steps to sampling wine are: see, sniff, swirl, smell sip, swish, and spit. This is the process we see tasters going through at the table and in wineries.

The first thing we want to do is see that the color of the wine is good. Put some light behind the glass and look for clarity. Fogginess is a sign we probably want to be careful with. Rusty colors in a white wine are another sign that we probably don’t want to put it in our mouths.

That might seem a bit crass but let’s keep in mind what we are looking at here. The act of Wine Degustation didn’t get its start at high society dinner tables as a way to see what was good with lamb, and what is better with beef. Wine Degustation came into being as a method of deciding what was safe to drink and what might be poisonous due to bad storage or aging processes. While today these tasting methods are less defensive, since modern methods of wine making produce safer wines, some wines you may get to embrace were bottled 100 years ago, or even 200.

Some red wines are so dark you will be lucky to see anything through them, but we still want to take a look. Some of the more obvious signs we want to look for are brown, muddy, orange or other non-winelike colors. It is not uncommon to see bits of cork floating in a glass of wine, just try to make sure that it is cork.

After our eyes are satisfied, we try our nose. Recall that taste is more or less an olfactory sense. With practice we can tell a great deal about a wine from its perfume. A good whiff at the very least will give you an impression, or preview of what to expect from the wine when we taste it. The obvious impressions to look out for are: does it smell like wine? Is the overall fragrance fresh or foul? Anything strange about it?

Our next step, the swirl, enhances our ability to evaluate the first two steps once more. The swirl is to get some of the wine onto the surface of the inside of the glass. Wines are generally not oily or syrupy. The liquid should slide off the side in an expected manner. Also with the wine spread out on the surface, it should be easier to get a better sample of the fragrance it presents. Which is what we do now, but this time we inhale it slowly. No quick sniffs. We bring the fragrance into our nose with a smooth steady inhale, letting our mind go through the stages of the bouquet with a more examining course.

If our nose is still interested then we move on to taking a small sip. Just enough to get a taste on our tongue. You will notice here a bit more of the cautionary tactics in the wine tasting steps, but there is a bit more benefit really than just making sure that we didn’t miss something painful in the previous steps before we commit to a good mouthful. Taking in just a taste allows our mouth to get a quick preview and some expectations. There is also the fact that many concoctions, not just wine, taste a bit different when taken in small sips rather than mouthfuls.

So we are still interested, and by this time we are sure whether or not we want to commit to a real taste, so we take in a mouthful. Not only do we take it in, we swish it around like it was mouthwash, letting the liquid coat every part of our mouths and gums. Allowing the wine to be heated up by our body temperature. Some tasters even gargle a bit with the wine, because our taste buds are everywhere in our mouths.

The last step is spit or swallow. Not much to say about that, but it is a choice to be sure. If this is the only wine or one of two or three you are going to be tasting tonight, swallowing might be an appropriate option. But if you are at a winery and going through 6 or 7 wines, spitting is probably your best option. Otherwise every wine is going to start tasting “swell” and you might as well just have a few glasses rather than try to go through the steps.

What are we really looking for through all of this? There are many aspects of wine, and each vintage and type has its nuances. There are some over all basics though we can start out with.

Oakiness - Some wines have a ‘oak’ flavor. There really isn’t another way to describe it. You have to taste it, but once you do you can pick it out. The flavor is generlly from either from the Aging barrel or oak chips

Sweetness - The process of some wines allows a greater amount of the natural sugars from the grapes (Or fruit) to remain without being processes into alcohol. So a sweetness, and sometimes a fruity taste remains from the amount of residual sugar

Tannin - A wine stressing tannins would be described most of the time as dry. Tannin is the bitterness from seed and skin of the grape and is effected by carbonic maceration and Maceration

Above all, the real test is Did you like it. Your tastes are just as valid as anyone else’s and life is too short for wine you don’t like. Enjoy. About the Author

Jerry Powell is the Owner of a Popular site Know as Gourmet911.com. As you can see from our name, we are here to help you learn more about different kinds of Gourmet food and Wines, Coffees from all around the world. www.gourmet911.com/