Video Transcript: French Wines 101
Written By: Anonymous on Mon, May 19th 2008
Brian Freedman: Welcome to the Classic Wines Minutes brought to you by ClassicWines.com; I am your host Brian Freedman. Join me as we explore the world of wine with the Sommelier Instructors here at the Wine School of Philadelphia.
Keith Wallace: Hi! I am here today with Brian Freedman and at the Wine School of Philadelphia, we teach the world of wine and today we are specifically going to talk about French Wines.
Brian Freedman: That's right Keith. French Wines are close to the heart of every wine lover even if they don't actually love French Wines and that's because typically French Wines are the base line level of quality when it comes to all the great grapes that we think of in the new world.
Keith Wallace: Absolutely for instance cabernet sauvignon, merlot, pinot noir, grenache, syrah, chardonnay, the list goes on and on.
Brian Freedman: So, now when you have a cabernet or a merlot, even if they are not trying to taste like bordeaux, people will have them in the back of their minds or at least tend to, or when it comes to pinot noir and chardonnay, it's impossible to have that without saying well that's completely burgundian in style or the opposite.
Now you mentioned grenache before and what we have in front of us is a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, which is from the southern Rhone and what are the main gapes in this.
Keith Wallace: Let's just talk about the principle grape, there are actually 13 but principally grenache, is the main grape here. And so if we stick our nose in this, it's just this pure gravelly and clay notes in that wine. This is very different than say a grenache would get from Australia or California, which would much more fruit driven and that's the big difference between the French style and the new world style of wine that's earth over fruits.
Brian Freedman: That's a divide that we can in general apply to the difference between old world and new world wines. Old world being the classic wine producing countries of western and central Europe. Now that reminds me of a very bad old joke. If a wine from France smells like dirt it's expensive, if a wine from California smells like dirt send it back. It's a big generalization, but I think it gets to the heart of the matter.
Keith Wallace: And one thing I would like to point out is that whenever you think of these grapes, everyone knows them, now in France what you are typically going to see is you will see something from bordeaux or from Châteauneuf-du-Pape or burgundy, they don't say the name of the wine or the grape on the label.
Brian Freedman: And that's because they have been growing the same grapes in the same place for so many years. 1500 years ago the Cistercian Monks, were figuring out in Burgundy which clones of pinot noir went best in which vineyard, so you don't have to be scared of seeing a French label without a grape, you just have to memorize those regions and then you can show off to all your friends and that's what wine is about isn't it, showing off?
Keith Wallace: Oh common please no, no, no.
Brian Freedman: Maybe not don't do that.
Keith Wallace: Don't do that and join us again as we continue our journey through the world of wine.
Brian Freedman: Cheers!
Keith Wallace: Cheers!
