Erin: Hi! I am Erin Collins from Vintages, wines and spirits in Colorado Springs, and today we are talking about the basic of wine varietals. The wine varietal is simply the great grown in the vineyard to produce the name of the wine on the label or the grapes that is in the bottle of wine. Now, let Anne explain to you all the different types of varietals.
Anne: This is an introduction to varietals. We are going to start with Chardonnay. Chardonnay is the most widely planted white varietal in the world, it is a wine that originated from Burgundy, France, it is very famous wines coming out of that region, it probably heard of are Volnay, Mersault, Puligny-Montrachet are just one of the, you know, some of the few.
Chardonnay is probably one of the most favorite one varietals for wine makers to work with, they call it the chicken of wine because you add anything to it, you can manipulate however you want. There is a lot of different things you can do to Chardonnay. You can add some oak treatment, whether with French oak or American oak, you can play around with new versus old, how much time you actually puts the wine in the oak for. You can do some semi lactic fermentation, and do some egg white fining, or maybe play around with some yeast and some yields, and sort of lot of things that you can do with Chardonnay, it is a very-very popular one. It has been for generations.
Sauvignon blanc is a varietals that originated in Bordeaux, France. It is one of the three approved white wine varietals that can go in to any white wine that is labeled from Bordeaux. Sauvignon Blanc is a chef’s favorite. It is probably their top choice for wine varietals as a whole but definitely for white wine varietals, because it is so easily paired with different types of food.
If Riesling comes from Germany and Riesling is a grape that threads in cool dry climates such as Germany, the Alsace region of France, and the cooler cost of climates of California, Washington and Oregon. Riesling is a – find that it is lower in alcohol contents, maybe 8 to 10 percent. It is typically vinified in a sweet or an off-dry style. It is very popular among people that are new to wine, and that they enjoys the sweeter pallets of it, and as they explore the world of wine a little bit more, they tend to get more familiar with some drier styles Pinot Grigio originated in the northeast part of Italy in an area called for Ferioli. Pinot Grigio is the very light-light wine, it is called Pinot Gris, some places in the United States and in Alsace. Grape means gray in that because its name, because that grapes look a little bit gray on the vine. Pinot Grigio just surpassed Sauvignon Blanc as the second most popular white wine varietal to consumed in the United States, the first of course being Chardonnay.
Pinot Noir is the grape that originated in Burgundy, France. It is a very light red grape, very thin skin, and it is a bigger grape, so it is not going to be nearly as heavy as some of the other red wines, like Merlot or a Cabernet Sauvignon. Pinot Noir is actually the very first grape variety to be cultivated for the purpose of making wine. The ancient Romans actually vinified Pinot Noir as early as first century A.D, so it goes back very long way. It is most notably from on grown in cold costal regions, similar to Riesling, it is a very tickled grape, because it is very large, and it is very thin skin, so it is easy, it buds early, it is acceptable to frost, it is acceptable to being perstel pin.
So Pinot Noir is going to be – it is a tough grape sugar gravo, when you do it right, it can be fantastic. It is a very lighter style red wine, and it is not nearly as tannic and heavy as some Cabernets or Merlots, so it is a great introductory red wine varietals to start drinking. As far as characteristics go, we are looking at a lot of black cherry, plumes, and trifle, maybe some green tea, very lighter, lowers the medium body, it is style wine, as far as paring, it is great with. Lighter meets pork, you know, some—[Laughing]
The moving sideways catapult to Pinot Noir, and to the wor
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