Unraveling French Wine Labels (Part 2)

You read yesterday and you got it down. You learned the real keys to French wine labels and you headed to your favorite wine shop to purchase some French wine. And because what we went through yesterday was from Bordeaux, you decided to stick with Bordeaux. But, you were really in a white wine mood not a red wine, so your went looking for Bordeaux Blanc.

Oops! Confusion set in.

The labels were different. And, clearly, the grapes are different. Now, how do we know what's going on?

Just as their are the five classic red grapes of Bordeaux, there are two classic white grapes, those being Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon. But, some bottles are shall we say normals-sized (750 ml), but there are an awful lot that are half that size. And, some of these wines are more the lighter and paler colors while the ones in the smaller bottles tend to be bright yellow. Surely, the labels will help us out.

Well, they don't. Again, they have the AOC or IGP designation or some just say Vin de Pays (a lower classification of a growing region than IGP that is often used for wines that don't meat the strict specifications of the AOC or IGP). And, we learn along the way that some of these wines are dry and some are sweet. How are we to know?

Let's start by separating the sweet from the dry. Generally speaking, at least among the AOC or IGP-designated wines. For the most part, those called Sauternes or Barsac are the sweet wines and are often found in the smaller bottles while the remainder are mostly dry.

But, the confusion continues particularly when we get to Sauternes. As we look through the Sauternes section of the Bordeaux wines, we find the Premiere Cru and the Deuxieme (2nd) Cru and we figure we've got this worked out. But, wait. There's more. In Sauternes, there is also Premiere Cru Superieur and we find out that in Sauternes, this is the finest white wine.

We give up. We're going back to red wines. And because we've decided that today we'd like Merlot-based wines, we're going to another AOC on the Right Bank -- St Emilion. 

This should be easy. We learned yesterday all about the red wine classifications in Bordeaux. But St Emilion adds a twist. Here the highest quality wines are Premier Grand Cru Classé A with those labeled Premier Grand Cru Classé B trailing as the next highest.

This is difficult. Maybe we should buy some Burgundy wines tomorrow as surely they will be easier.



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