Grape of the Day

Let's go to the Loire Valley of France today. We're in the far western part of the country about an hour mostly north of Bordeaux. The grape we are enjoying today, while frequently known as Muscadet, named after the small region in which it is usually grown, is technically Melon de Bourgogne. It's a hybrid, likely born of Pinot Blanc and Gouais Blanc. Melon de Bourgogne, sometimes known as simply Melon, has a strange history. Once a heavily planted grape, it was outlawed during much of the 16th and 17th centuries in France. Originally from the area around Anjou on the Swiss border far to the east, Melon was widely produced and shipped to Holland (now part of the Netherlands). Political struggles, however, caused its probibition, and it was only after the disastrous winter of 1709 in the Loire Valley that vignerons looked to Melon. Winemakers in Loire needed a white grape that they felt could withstand winters of that sort and planted Melon plentifully around Muscadet. While...

We're in northwest Spain today the Castilian area, the part of the country that people don't get to, to drink wine made from Mencia, a local red grape known as Jaen in Portugal. While it does grow in other places, Mencia's natural home seems to be in the Denomincation d'Origen Protegida (DOP) of Bierzo. It's a series of mountains surrounding valleys, the more mountainous Alto Bierzo  and the flat plain known as Bajo Bierzo. The area was hit hard by the phylloxera disease nearly a century and a half ago. Coming out of phylloxera, winemakers planted a lot of Mencia because of its high yields and resistance to the disease. The good news was the high yields. The bad news was the lack of intensity of the wines. It's only been in the 21st century that local winemakers planting primarily on mountainsides in the rocky, minerally schist soils have been able to control the yield and produce more intense Mencia. It's those more intense Mencias that we will be tasting t...

We had a tough travel decision today. Do we fly into Bratislava, Slovakia and drive about an hour south across the Danube or do we simply parachute into Moson County Transdanubia in eastern Hungary. After checking the weather, we chose the more traditional route.  Upon our arrival, we notice that the area is quite hilly -- not mountainous although the Transdanubian Mountains do encroach just a bit, but nothing but rolling hills. And, the hills while not completely covered in foliage are quite green. The weather here is quite like the American midwest although not normally as cold in winter. The winds whip quite liberally, in fact, throughout our stay, there is a constant wind of 20 MPH/32KPH or more with gusts often double that. Our grape today is Cserszegi Fuszeres chosen because a loyal reader asked for pronunciation guides. Today, I break down and tell you this is anglicized chairseggy foosarresh. It is a white grape -- a Traminer as is Gewurtzraminer. So, we expect it to be aro...

This morning, we took a quick 18 minute bike ride from Meursault to Montrachet for our final day of our Chardonnay journey. The air was crisp and a bit breezy as we rode the couple of miles through the rolling countryside of Cote de Beaune (part of Burgundy). Understanding the wines from here may be a bit confusing, but we're going to try.  First, the appellation d'origine controllee (AOC) of Montrachet is itself split in three, in order by fame (and fortune): Puligny-Montrachet (sometimes just Montrachet), Chassagne-Montrachet (sometimes Le Montrachet) and Batard-Montrachet, the poor stepchild with no alternate moniker. In fact, each of Puligny, Chassagne, and Batard is a commune within Montrachet. Producers of wine in each of those communes customarily append the name of the commune of origin before Montrachet in the name of the wine. For example, if your wallet is incredibly large and your pallet equally impressive, you might try the likes of Domaine Leflaive Puligny-Montrac...

We got adventurous today and rented motorcycles to take the scenic 90 mile trip south and slightly east from Chablis to Meursault, just a bit southwest of Dijon. We noticed a bit of warming as we moved south and this is reflected in the wines we taste today. As is the case in all of Bourgogne (Burgundy), when we say white wine, we mean Chardonnay. And, frankly to a Burgundian, there is no Chardonnay outside of their beloved home that deserves the label. Meursault is one of the most storied communes in all the white wine world. It's also is home to some of the most expensive wines in the world, some very much worth it if you have the money and others just making use of the Appellation d'origine controllee (AOC) to increase their prices. Because we've given ourselves license to do so, as in blogland, we have unlimited wine budgets, today we are drinking only the finest that Meursault has to offer. What we are looking for are elevations between about 800 and 1,000 feet (roughl...

Today we continue our Chardonnay journey in the historic winemaking Appellation d'Origin Controllee (AOC) of Chablis. It's the northernmost AOC in Bourgogne (Burgundy) and is actually closer to the AOC of Champagne than it is to most of Bourgogne. We flew into Paris and took a lovely boat ride down the Seine to the area around Dijon, took a quick ride to the Serein and road a small boat on the Serein to the point where it meets the Yonne in the little town of Chablis. Here, the summer evenings are quite cool and the days merely temperate. We notice nothing but vineyards, the most ornate of them all sitting on gentle slopes and facing southwest. The southwest facing slopes get the most constant and brightest summer sunshine, perfect for growing Chardonnay in the otherwise cool (for France) wine-growing region. As we spend our day going from chateau to chateau, we note that at most, there is no sign of oak anywhere. We learn that even among the 7 Grand Cru and 40 Premier Cru ...

There are many ways to get from Sonoma wine country which is most of the county to Napa wine country which is seemingly nearly all of the county, but as we are drinking Chardonnay today, it seems to make sense to simply stay in the Carneros or Los Carneros AVA which straddles both counties. Almost immediately, we see a striking difference. While vineyards in Sonoma are fairly well spread out, in Napa, they are nearly wall to wall. Driving on Highway 29 or Silverado Trail as well as the streets that connect them, it's almost rare to see a driveway that's not an entrance to a winery or at the very least, a wine-related business. Ultimately, Napa is known for Cabernet Sauvignon. Yet, in the Judgement of Paris, a wine battle staged in 1976 by famed wine critic Stephen Spurrier (not the football coach) in which California Cabernets competed with some of the best red wines of Bordeaux and California Chardonnays competed with some of Burgundy's finest, it was really the Chardonn...

Today, we are in the sprawling California county of Sonoma to drink their versions of Chardonnay. Unlike typically much smaller Appelations d'Origin Controllee (AOC) in France, for example, the Sonoma region is so large that it contains a multitude of American Viticultural Areas (AVA) wih diverse climates, soils, and growing conditions. What do we know about Sonoma County? It begins just barely north of San Francisco and runs some 75 miles north to south and 65 east to west, being mountainous as often as not where it borders Napa yet running right to the edge of the Pacific Ocean in the west, having oppressively hot summers inland in some of the valleys situated properly among the mountains to having much more Burgundian like weather in areas such as Sonoma Coast running the length of the west to the more inland Russian River Valley, Chalk Hill, Alexander Valley, Carneros (sometimes Los Carneros and shared with Napa County), and finally Fort Ross/Seaview to the northwest yet not ...

Today, we travel to California wine country, and by that we mean nowhere in particular. California is a massive state. Were it a country, it would sit about 60th in size right between Iraq and Paraguay. A sizable portion of the state lays claim to being wine-producing. And, among white wine grapes in California, there is no question, Chardonnay is king. In fact, despite commanding a much lower price per bottle than the red wine, Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay sales fall only about 1% short of Cabernet. On this journey thus far, we've tasted a lot of really good wine. But, it's not easy to produce $2.5 billion of wine from one grape varietal in the US and make it all good. In fact, to produce the amounts needed to get to those levels, some has to be, shall we say, less refined. I'm not going to call out any wineries in particular, but many fit the bill. And, they know it. They are not in business to create great wine. They are in business to appeal to the masses. They want...

Today, we are in the boot of Italy. The wine region is usually referred to as Puglia. Puglia is a red wine region, famous for its  Primitivo  and Negroamaro. As recently as 30 years ago, there was not a hint of Chardonnay there. But in the Indicazione Geografica Tipica (IGT) Salento, there was a winemaker who had an inspiration. It was said to come to him from the Chiesa Madre (mother church) in Guagnano, a small town in the boot just miles from the Adriatic Sea. That inspiration was that the combination of the climate and the soil were perfect to grown Chardonnay. Nearly laughed off the boot, he was inspired by the temperate climate (winter lows usually in the vicinity of 5-7C/41-44F and summer highs rarely as high as 30C/86F) with relatively high humidity year-round, a rainy season beginning in mid-October and lasting through most of the winter and dry summers. But, more than that, he was inspired by the Baroque architecture of his church erected from local limestone. It w...

This was not an easy trip. We drove from the Margaret River wine region north to Perth, got a plane to Melbourne, changed planes and barely made the only flight of the day south to Hobart, the capital of Tasmania in the southeastern corner of the island and then drove west to the Derwent Valley region. It's quite cool here or so the Tassies (the name for the locals who live on the island) tell me year round, but rarely what we think of as cold. Temperatures as high as 25C/77F are quite rare as are those below about -3C/27F. It rains more than in many of the classic wine-growing regions of the world and the sun just doesn't shine that frequently. This climate will elicit a special acidity that may be anathema to lovers of bulk-produced California Chardonnay, but will resonate with those who tend to shy away from the grape. So, why are we here? We're here to drink the Chardonnay of the Derwent Valley, something we will not regret. The first thing we notice are the bottles...

In case anyone asks, it is really difficult to get from Chile to the Margaret River wine area in Western Australia. In fact, it's not easy to get to Margaret River from very many places. Sitting perhaps five miles inland from the beaches of Surfer's Point on the Indian Ocean, but a full three hours south of Perth, winemakers of the area are employing "Old World" techniques to make some of the finest Chardonnay in the world. There are other reasons that the Margaret River area is producing wines easily mistaken in quality for the Premier Crus of Burgundy. While each vineyard may have its own microclimate, the proximity to the Indian Ocean makes for more Mediterranean-like temperatures than the often extreme heat of areas such as Barossa Valley and McLaren Vale far to the east. During growing season, it's dry with only about an inch of rain each month from October through April, enough to grow rhe grapes, but not enough to create rot problems. The origins of Mar...

Today we return to the Colchagua Valley area of Chile. Centered around the town of Santa Cruz and roughly 100 miles south of the capital city of Santiago, Colchagua Valley is somewhat of a wine grower's paradise. It's a mere 15 miles or so from the Pacific Ocean, surrounded by mountains, the Andes being the most majestic by far, nearly 360 degrees around, it has a rainy, but not horribly so, winter and a bone dry summer. Winter temperatures tend to stay above 5C/41F while summer's daytime highs normally top out between 28 and 30C/ 82 to 86F. The sun shines long and bright during the summer baking the grapes with little respite. It is exactly these stresses that produce high-quality wines of character. We're traveling to Santa Cruz from the provincial capital of San Fernando to its east. Along the somewhat rustic and elevated roads that we traverse, we see the local colonial architecture embedded in an agricultural area. As we enter Santa Cruz, there are vineyards and ...

Today we start a global journey exploring the nearly ubiquitous white grape Chardonnay. While it has long been the sole grape that has produced the famous white Burgundy that will be part of our journey over the next number of days, only the vignerons  and winemakers were truly familiar with the name. It wasn't until the advent of "New World" wines that listing the grape varietal or varietals on bottles was in vogue. Until then, we usually just saw the appellation, e.g., Chablis, and or the region, e.g., Bourgogne. In particular, the branding of Napa Valley wine put an end to that and Chardonnay became a wine of choice for wine drinkers in the US as well as many other geographies. Fans of the grape note its easy drinking and expressive flavors. Dissenters tend not to hate the grape, but the way the grape is produced into a wine. On this journey, we'll start in the Colchagua Valley of Chile, both Margaret River and Tasmania in Australia, Sonoma and Napa in Californ...

We've decided to travel today to another unusual wine region to drink Seyval Blanc.Nova Scotia, despite its seeming remoteness, is the second most densely populated of Canada's provinces. Located to the east of the US state of Maine, we would not expect it to be much of a grape growing region and, in fact, it's not. But located on the edge of Minas Basin at the east end of the Bay of Fundy, we're fortunate enough to find most of the 400 hectares of wine grapes growing in Nova Scotia. Here, we find bay breezes mixed with cool temperatures. In the summer, temperatures above 25C/77F are unusual while in winter, daytime highs often don't reach the freezing point of water. Most wine grapes won't grow there, but Seyval Blanc, a hybrid of a vitis vinifera grape and some other non- vinifera  grape will. Curiously, because it's not entirely vinifera, it is outlawed as a wine grape in the European Union and in most of the non-EU European countries as well. In Nort...

We're right on the Mediterranean shoreline today to drink wines made from Cinsault, but we decided to go off the beaten path. Anyone can enjoy Cinsault in Provence or Languedoc-Roussillon or even buried deep in some of the wines of Chateauneuf du Pape, but we've decided to go to Oran in the far northern part of Algeria on the Mediterranean Sea. The weather is warm and dry and while it can get quite hot (as much as 45C/113F), more commonly, daytime highs in the winter average around 17C/62F while summer highs tend to be nearer to 30C/86F. It's fairly humid for a desert country, but the rain that Oran gets is just enough to grow our Cinsault without fancy irrigation methods, but nowhere near enough to ruin the crop. Interestingly, Oran was once what we would think of as a vacation home for royalty during the Ottoman Empire, so much of the scenery that we can see from the vineyards consists of fairly tall harem towers where the concubines were kept. Our wine today is not...

We're off to Switzerland today to drink wine from a somewhat curious white wine grape, Chasselas. We're tasting wines both from the lower lands on the northeastern borders of France to those grown at high altitude near the ski canton of Valais in the Swiss Alps. It's a fairly blase grape when considered simply by itself having little, if any flavor. So, why do we drink this wine? Moreso than many other grapes, Chasselas takes on the terroir in which it is grown. So, planting it in the rocky slopes of the low Alps gives us a minerally and sometimes piney flavor. Planting on the river near Geneva gives us more citrusy, acidic notes. All that said, there are some consistencies. It's a very easy-drinking wine despite its moderately high acidity. We note a light body and fairly low alcohol content usually around 12% ABV. As it can be served refrigerator cold, it can be quite refreshing on a summer afternoon. The characteristics pretty common to pretty much all Chassela...

Today, we make an unusual trip in our wine adventures flying all the way to Tokyo. From there, we're taking the bullet train to Odawara and then heading on local transportation to the Yamanashi Prefecture. We've picked a perfect day to do this as the air is clear and the sun warms us through the wispy clouds. As we sit down to taste, we ensure that we have a south-facing view. Why? Almost directly to our south is the magnificent sight of Fujiyama (Mt Fuji to most Americans) with its year-round snow-capped peak. The grape we are going to enjoy today is a true hybrid. Koshu is part vitis vinifera and part non-vinifera yet to be determined. That it is part vinifera suggests that one of the parents may have been brought initially from Europe and either intentionally or not bred with some non-vinifera grape. The grape itself is quite pinkish in color and is often enjoyed as a table grape, but it also has the ability to produce an interesting white wine. In the glass, we note i...

Weary from our recent travel, we kept it short today just hopping on the ferry from the island of Korcula to the little Croatian peninsula known as Peljesac. Including our ride across the narrow straits, our trip takes barely 90 minutes as we traverse the pine-shaded roads heading southeast on the peninsula. As we noted, yesterday, Plavac Mali, literally "small blue" is the frequent "husband" of  Grk Bijeli , but also quite an interesting grape in its right. American Zinfandel lovers should be in for a treat as the typical Plavac characteristics are not unlike those found in the Zinfandel found primarily in California. Plavac Mali is a very temperature sensitive grape, not in its ability to grow, but in the wines it may produce. As is the case with many other red grapes, Pinot Noir being an excellent example of this, the hotter the climate and growing season, the darker the flavors and generally the higher the alcohol content in the resultant wine. The Plavac ...

We drove across Italy late yesterday and then took a quaint boat ride across the Adriatic Sea disembarking on the tiny, yet quite scenic Croatian island of Korcula. We drive through the pine forests, although forest may be an overstatement and the olive groves to the little village of Lumbarda near the southern tip of the island. It's a small tourist mecca with pristine beaches and wonderful scuba diving, and it's the home of a curious white grape known as Grk Bijeli (it's not often that we English speakers run across a word with no vowels). The weather here makes for a little island paradise, but it's also quite nice for grape growing. With overnight lows rarely below 5C/41F in the middle of winter and daytime highs usually peaking around 30C/86F in the summer, lots of sunshine, and relatively dry summers produce just the right amount of stress to grow Grk Bijeli. It's a strange little grape. Grk Bijeli has only female flowers. It cannot reproduce on its own. S...

Our trip to Naples today was quite pleasant. After leaving our plane, we headed to the coast along the Tyrrhenian Sea and a bit north to the principal grape growing part of the region known as Campania. The weather there is somewhat easy for the vignerons  -- rarely freezing in winter and rarely above 30C/86F during summer. Rains during growing season are infrequent and more of a misting than a real rain. It is here that we find ourselves drinking one of the most important white grapes of the region, Falanghina. Falanghina is what some would describe as an easy-drinking wine. It's not harsh, it's not typically high in alcohol, it's not particularly acidic and if there are any tannins present at all, we'll never find them (this is true of almost all white wines). Falanghina is believed to have been around for a long time. There is evidence that it may have produced a beverage of choice during the early days of the Roman Empire and likely before then. At one time, I r...

It was a short overnight trip that brought us to the Kakheti region of the Republic of Georgia. Kakheti sits just east of Tbilisi about halfway between the Black Sea and Caspian Sea, not far from Azerbaijan. From a viticultural standpoint, Kakheti has an interesting geography and climate. Much of the grapes growing there and Saperavi is one of the most important grapes is done along the Alazani and Iori Rovers and nestled between the Caucusus and Tsiv-Gombori Mountains. What this results in is a climate that is less than ideal for some of the more common wine grapes of the world. Winters can be cold with low temperatures often as low as -10C/14F and summer temperatures rarely exceed 30C/86F. During the summer, while it rarely rains hard or long, it does rain about one day in three. Saperavi is a particularly hearty grape in cold weather. The vines are able to withstand those often long freezes. It is not overly susceptible to rot and mildew, so it is able to withstand the Georgian ...

We're posting late this morning because the trip from the western Loire valley to the craggy high desert of Lebanon near Bekaa Valley was difficult. And, we're also drinking wine from a fairly obscure red grape that is a hybrid born of the 2nd half of the 20th century of 2 far better known grapes. Arinarnoa is a grape bred from the marriage of Cabernet Sauvignon and  Tannat.  While the grape is believed to have been bred in either Languedoc or Provence in southwest France, plantings as a percentage of total wine grape plantings have been far higher in both the South American countries of Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay, and in Lebanon. It's a very dark grape, not surprisingly given its heritage. It's also quite tannic, yet aromatic at the same time. It grows easily in particularly temperamental landscapes and has been found to make it through harvest without so much as drip irrigation. It buds quite late and also harvests late, producing a decently long growing seaso...

Today we travel to the small village of Chinon in the western part of France, roughly halfway north and south in the country and just off the southern banks of the Loire River. In fact, technically, we are on the quite steep banks of the La Rue Vienne, but knowing that would help almost nobody. We're drinking Cabernet Franc, once the most treasured of all red grapes in France. One of the five classic red grapes of Bordeaux, Cabernet Franc is actually a parent of both Cabernet Sauvignon (along with Sauvignon Blanc, sometimes just referred to as Sauvignon) and of Merlot (along with Magdeleine Noir, likely that grape's only claim to fame). In the early 17th Century, Cabernet Franc was the choice of the church in France as Cardinal Richelieu had a particular fascination with the grape and its wine. As late as the mid-1960s, there was as much Cabermet Franc planted in France as either Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot, despite Cabernet Franc rarely being produced as single varietal w...

No purveyors of a language can combine words to form longer ones with the ease of those who use German. It's where we get today's dandy, Trockenbeerenauslese (TBA). Readers may recall that trocken   means dry, so they might guess that we have returned today to dry Riesling. No, instead, what this classification refers to are dry, slect berries. In other words, the grapes have stayed on the vine so long that they have completely shriveled to appear as dried berries. While we are drinking a variety of vintages today, some as much as 50 years old, we've started out in the vineyards with the vigneron  as he looks at his grapes. Each has been shriveled with botrytis  (noble rot) and the vigneron picks each by hand. In a TBA wine, quality is essential. Many vintages do not produce TBA wines. The grapes must stay on the vine long enough to botrytize, but not so long as to freeze or to be rain-damaged. In some vintages, this never occurs. In some other vintages, the numb...

We're getting sweeter today. Although it is not a legal requirement, there is no point in making a dry Beerenauslese. Literally, select berry harvest, Riesling Beerenauslese is the second highest classification of the pradikat . Because of the lateness of the harvest, most Riesling Beerenauslese grapes have stayed on the vine long enough for botrytis , or noble rot, to have set in. What's so special about this? When produced as a Riesling, we know that Beerenauslesen (BA) are produced only in vintages in which the weather conditions were suitable for such production. That means that as much as 10-20 days after the normal harvest, and after the grapes had been botrytized, only when were they picked. What we get from this is wines of extreme ripeness, lush and sweet, but well-balanced with the high natural acidity of the Riesling grapes. This allows most BA wines to be extremely ageworthy. The must is required to be quite heavy, at least 125 Oeschle in the Rheingau, altho...

We've made it to the highest classification of the pradikat Riesling that is readily available -- the Auslese, meaning select harvest classification. While Riesling Auslese can be made in a dry trocken style, Germany has discouraged that for a number of years, so we focus today on the sweeter variety. In the Rheingau, the requirement is that the must have a specific mass of at least 1095 grams per liter; i.e., the juice must be a minimum of 95 Oeschel. And, the sweetness and weightiness must be natural. In some areas outside of Germany, winemakers use a process called chaptalization (adding sugar to the must to increase the level of alcohol post-fermentation). We have been offered a variety of Riesling Auslese for our adventure today. We notice differences in the bottles, but initially ignore them. What we do notice and have for our entire time on this side of the river in Germany (we noticed this during most of the rest of our Riesling journey as well) is that the bottles are ...

We're moving up the classification ranks of German Riesling and today, we arrive at Spatlese, literally meaning late harvest. The grapes for a Riesling Spatlese are typically picked about one full week after the traditional harvest. Understand, however, that in an American context, when a wine is designated late harvest, it implies sweet. In the case of Riesling Spatlese, while the wines are almost always sweeter and fruitier than  Riesling Kabinett , there is no requirement. What is required is that the must have a specific mass (varying by growing region) of at least 85 Oeschel in the Rheingau, for example. That's a pretty dense juice that has the ability to be made quite sweet. Of course, full fermentation can produce a trocken style Riesling Spatlese, but this is generally considered to be counterproductive. Since it's a "higher-quality" wine that will fetch a higher price on the market, why would winemakers not produce all their Riesling to be at least in...

The travel was easy this morning. Basically, it required rolling out of bed. We're still in the northern Rhein/Rhine region of Germany and we're drinking Riesling. More specifically, we're drinking Riesling Kabinett. It sure does seem like a strange name. Kabinett translated to English means cabinet. So, in Germany, the wines classified Kabinett are considered good enough that the winemaker, rather than selling them, might want to keep them in his own cabinet or kabinett. In the German wine classification taxonomy, the grade of a pradikat  wine is determined by the specific mass  of the must (the juice with stems, seeds, and skins). For wines of the region, this is measured on the Oeschle Scale , presumably named after a scientist with the last name Oeschle. When the must has a specific mass at 20C/68F in excess of 1 kilogram, each gram in excess of 1 kilogram is an Oeschle point, designated as Oe. For our Riesling to be of the Kabinett quality, the wine must generally ...

Swimming across the Rhine was difficult this morning. But, it seemed the shortest way to get across and into Germany. And, there is no better place to experience the many styles of Riesling than on this side of the Rhine. We're going to be tasting nothing but pradikat Riesling, those of the highest quality. Among the pradikat, the wines are divided into a number of classifications based on the amount of sugar in the must (the juice that contains, the skins, stems, and seeds from the fruit). We start with the dryest of the group -- trocken Trocken is the German word for dry. And, although trocken is not technically one of the predikat, we are starting with it. The trocken descriptor is accurate. These wines are acidic, crisp, and bone dry. Often brimming with somewhat tart pear, green apple, white peach, nectarine, faint hints of apricot, and quite restrained grapefruit, our trocken Rieslings are known for expressing the terroir of the area. As we sip, we note the minerality and...

Tucked in the northeast corner of France on the west bank of the Rhine sits the tiny region of Alsace. With its population center in Strasbourg, Alsace sits closer not just to Germany than any major city in France, but also to Switzerland and Luxembourg and perhaps even Liechtenstein and Belgium. While we can mostly communicate today in French, many of the locals have stuck to their Alsatian tongue, probably closer to Swiss German than anything else. In the world of French wine, the Alsace Appellation Originee Controllee (AOC) is unique. Go anywhere else in France. Look at the label on a bottle of wine. What do you see? You see the AOC and perhaps a classification such as Grand Cru or Deuxieme Cru, but never the name of a grape. It's simply common knowledge for those who care that a red wine labeled Bourgogne  will be Pinot Noir while a white wine will be Chardonnay. In Alsace, there are four noble grapes, all white, and any may be included on the label: Gewurtzraminer, Muscat,...