A note on blends
Written By: Brian Quinn on Wed, Apr 14th 2010
Sometimes I see wines listed as a red blend, white blend, Red Rhone, or Bordeaux. Other times they are listed as a varietal blend or two varietal names are listed. WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?
A wine is only listed as a specific varietal if it contains 85% or more than one grape, otherwise it is listed as a blend. These can be of course white or red blends. There are some specific blends such as a Red Rhone or Bordeaux. For more information on them look for their article listed in the varietals category. For blends where a varietal is mentioned it only means that the grap listed makes up at least 30% of the blend. Varietals are listed in order of percentage, for instance if a wine was made up of 30% shiraz, 50% merlot, and 20% sangiovese it should be listed as a merlot-shiraz blend. Notice the Sangiovese was left out because it only made up 20% of the wine.
