SYRAH SHIRAZ
Cool climate syrah smells, tastes, even feels different as a wine than that from warmer vineyard areas. And wine tasters, once they put them side by side (in place or memory), might well prefer one to the other precisely for these differences. Most of these differences are accounted for by how syrah ripens, a function of climate if ever there was one. Photo from Al Elmes on unsplash
IF YOU LIKE X, YOU’LL LIKE Y
If you want to step out and like some wines that are like the standards—such as chardonnay or cabernet sauvignon—I offer some suggestions. You can always go back to same old, same old.
JANCIS ROBINSON’S “WINE GRAPES”
The destiny of this hefty text is as permanent resident on your wine reference shelf, alongside such indispensables as Robinson’s own editorship of “The Oxford Companion to Wine.”
CARMÉNÈRE
You may taste many things in a sip of red wine: a panoply of fruit flavors, earth or minerals, spicy wood, even the cleansing astringency of tannin. In a wine made from carménère, a red grape born in France but that has flowered of late in Chile, you also will taste mystery. Illustration of the Carmenère grape variety by Jules Troncy in the work "Ampelography,” 1901
OFFBEAT REDS
It’s a no-brainer that the combination of best value and highest quality in wine now comes from offbeat winemaking regions and their odd grapes. Here’s a too-short look at that combo in red wine, from the grape’s point of view.
AUSTRIAN REDS
Here's a tour of Austria's three major red wine grapes and the characteristics that define them.
LIGHTER REDS
Keep in mind that it’s the globe’s lighter reds that will put you palate in good stead with as wide a range of foods as you wish to enjoy.
THE 10 BEAUJOLAIS CRUS
Like Gaul, all of Beaujolais is divided into three parts: Beaujolais, Beaujolais Villages and what are known as the Beaujolais “crus.”
REDS TO CHILL
Here’s to the reds of summer: soft, smooth, juicy reds that you’ll want to gulp rather than sip. Even reds that can take a chill.
NON-CHAMPAGNE FRANCE
Nearly every French winemaking region outside Champagne produces sparkling wine.
CABERNET FRANC
Cabernet franc is generally “lighter, paler, crisper, softer, more aromatic and silkier” than cabernet sauvignon, Jancis Robinson writes.
GARNACHA TINTA / GRENACHE NOIR
Flavors and aromas of good red Garnacha or Grenache may include ripe strawberries, blackcurrants, raspberries, blackberries, dark cherries, black pepper, spices, coffee, fresh gingerbread, even tar or leather. Wow.