Wine 101

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.



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