The White Blend

It was just yesterday that we talked about the red blend and I heard such things from readers as "That's me" and "Every single day in a restaurant" [punctuated differently]. And, as we tried to point out, not all red blends are the same. Not all red blends are easy drinking. Not all red blends are soft on the palate. And, while I didn't say it yesterday, some red blends are just flat out horrible.

Today, however, is not a red blend day. Today is a day to talk about white blends. To people in most of the world, this is a common thing to find in a wine bottle although they are rarely called white blends. In North America, however, white blends, compared to almost anything else you might ever see in a bottle, are virtually nonexistent. Virtually nobody asks for them in restaurants. Wine consumers in the US rarely buy them and as a group certainly do not seek them out. 

The obvious conclusion must be that they are not any good. Well, that would be wrong. Although just like anything else that as a group might be put in a wine bottle, some white blends are incredibly bad, some are among the finest wines in the world. But, in the US, people, generally speaking, do not drink them, ask for them, or buy them.

Why not? I have a theory. An awful lot of people in the US get their start in drinking other than jug or non-grape wines by drinking Chardonnay. No matter what you think about the taste of Chardonnay, it would be difficult to find a wine drinker who finds Chardonnay harsh on the palate. Medium-bodied and low to medium in acidity, often a bit creamy on the palate and served cool, often far too cool to actually taste it, Chardonnay as a group of wines is pretty easy drinking. While it might not be the most food-friendly wine, drinkers often don't care. In the same way that often under-educated wine drinkers think of red blends as easy drinking, so they do of Chardonnay, so they don't look elsewhere when considering white wines.

If we look outside of the US, though, the story is different. Go to Bordeaux. Most whites are blends of Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon. In the southern Rhone, you'll see fine white wines that blend Roussanne and Marsanne, Grenache Blanc with several other grapes, and about a dozen less used grapes. These wines tend to be really food friendly. But, they don't say white blend on the bottle and, in fact, they rarely mention the grapes that are used. So, Americans don't buy them.

American wine drinkers are a strange breed, but if you are one of them, do yourself a favor and try some white blends. I think you'll like them.