More on Blends

I guess I've been on a roll about this lately. Is there something magical about blends? And, for that matter, what is a blend when it comes to wine? Isn't almost all wine a blend of one sort or another, unless, of course, that wine is made from grapes of a single variety all gathered from the same plot having been picked together on the same day at roughly the same time? Two puppies from the same litter have different characteristics, so why would two grapes from the same row not have different characteristics?

All that said, there are different degrees of what we might refer to as blending. For purposes of today's post, we are talking about conscious decisions by winemakers to blend some combination of different varieties of grapes and or the same varieties from different vineyards. Why do they do this?

Consider the write-ups from winemakers of their reasoning for different blended creations. One might say she added Petit Verdot to her Cabernet Sauvignon to add some purple tint, some earthiness from the sage notes, and some additional minerality. One more focused on using his surplus of Merlot from the growing season might say he did so to make it more pleasing.

I'm always suspect when a winemaker or winery or proprietor says that they did something to make a wine more pleasing or exciting or pretty much any word like that. Pleasing to whom? To them? To your wallet? To the branding police?

In reality, at least in my experience, when the rationale given is something so vague as more pleasing or exciting, one of two things is happening. Either the winemaker is trying to cover up defects that might not be of his own doing, e.g., the weather during growing season was too hot or too rainy, or the winemaker is trying to exploit the public, especially the American public's fascination with things called blends.

I can tell you a quick story to explain. I recently had a conversation with someone who would purport to know a lot about wine. The discussion was about red Rhone Valley wines. This individual explained to me that Rhone (-style) blends, particularly from Wsahington state are better than Rhone wines because of the blending.

Hmph! 

Yes, it is true that wines from the northern Rhone tend to be Syrah-based and wines from the southern Rhone tend to be Grenache-based, but far more than not are blends. And, further, they tend not to be blends that are just thrown together.

Now, this is not to say that Rhone-style blends from Washington are bad. Quite the contrary. Some are very good (some are flat out putrid), but to condemn the wines of Rhone because nothing in their labeling or marketing says blend is just criminal.

If what you really like are blends, understand why. And, then, buy the blends that fit your needs or wants. But, don't buy them because they are blends; buy them because you like the way they are blended.

Many of the great wines of the world are blends. That they are not labeled as such should likely be more of a positive than a negative, except to the nouveau American wine drinker.