* News Updates
* Special offers
* Post reviews
Create Account

Video Transcript: How to Read a Wine Label

Written By: ClassicWines.com Team on Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Brian Freedman: Welcome to classicwines.com, where today we will be discussing how to navigate a wine label. Now this is not necessarily quite as simple as you might think it is because there's a lot of information on these things that depending upon the country of origin or sometimes even the region of origin, it could get a little bit confusing.

So, today, a simple primer on how to make heads from tails of these wine labels. Two very different labels today, we have a new world bottle and we have an old world bottle. New world one of the main differences is that you will actually be told the name of the grape. In this case it says right here Old Vine Zinfandel, Zinfandel is actually the name of the grape that produced the juice that was vinified into the wine in this bottle.

Now a couple of things to look at on this label, Ravens Wood right here, this is the producer. We don't want to say vineyard or winery because oftentimes the vineyard is a very separate entity from the winery. In fact, oftentimes there are many vineyards contributing for the grapes. So we just say producer, it covers all of our bases, much safer.

The next thing we want to look for here, 2005, this is actually the vintage. This date is the year that the grapes were harvested, not the year the juice was put inside the bottle. So always good to keep that in mind and aside from that we have this term here Old Vine, the legal definition for Old Vine in California is how do we want to say this, fuzzy at best. So really you just have to hope that the producer is using vines that are slightly older than, I don't know, let's say a day-and-a-half before they put Old Vines on the label.

Now with wine Number Two, this is the Joseph Drouhin Chablis Premier Cru. Nowhere on this label does it actually tell us explicitly what grapes have gone into this bottle. Fear not, with many, many French wines we are actually just going to be told the name of the region, why? Well, Chablis is the northernmost wine district of the Burgundy region. Now they have been growing Chardonnay grapes there for so long that we actually get more information about the wine by being told where it's from than what the grapes are.

Essentially, as soon as we see on there Chablis, we know that it's going to be Chardonnay. Now these other terms here Premier Cru; in France they actually have a system of ranking vineyards and the best ones in Chablis are Grand Cru, the second best ones are Premier Cru. In this case all of the fruit in this bottle of wine actually came from Premier Cru rated vineyards. Notice, however, that it does not specify which Premier Cru vineyard; that just means that it came from a number of different ones of the same rating.

So we want to thank The Wine School of Philadelphia today and we want to thank, well who do we want to thank? Let's thank these bottles because as soon as we cut, we are going to be tasting them, we can't go wrong with a good Premier Cru Chablis. For all of us here at classicwines.com, I am Brian Freedman. Cheers!

Send to a Friend Add to: Digg Add to: Del.icio.us

Wines Featured In Video Transcript: How to Read a Wine Label

Joseph Drouhin 2005 Chablis Premier Cru
Region: Europe > France > Burgundy > Chablis

  

Ravenswood 2005 Old Vine
Region: Sonoma County

  

 Related Videos for Video Transcript: How to Read a Wine Label

 1  2  3  4  5 ...  Next >> 

Rose D'Anjou Wine Showdown Rose D'Anjou Wine Showdown
Posted on Friday, August 24, 2007

From the Warra Valley, we compare two value priced Rose D'Anjous. Will these be your everyday dry rose - or bring something new to the...read more

Pinot Boutique: A Toy Store for Wine Lover's Pinot Boutique: A Toy Store for Wine Lover's
Posted on Monday, November 26, 2007

Pinot Boutique in Old City Philadelphia is truly a toy store for wine lovers. They have wine accessories for every occasion - from crystal glassware...read more

Big Wine Myths Understanding Big Wine Myths
Posted on Thursday, January 31, 2008

Have you ever wanted to learn about wine? Do you want to find out about all the red wine myths you've heard. The Classic Wines...read more


 

  Be the first to comment on this article

You need to log into your ClassicWines account to leave a comment on this article. You can log in here. If you do not have a Classic Wines account you can sign up here.