wine

general 

If you had a library of books about potatoes or you were a member of IAPTS (International Association of Potato-Tasting Societies), you might be considered somewhat,  eccentric maybe, but when you have a library of books about wine, that is considered absolutely normal, even admirable. Yet, wine is above all an agricultural product so the comparison is apt.

Only in the last few centuries have wine making techniques become sufficiently sophisticated for the emergence of wine connoisseurship, but the potential was always there, for the vine is a complex and varied genus (botanical name Vitis). There are many different vine species, of which Vitis Vinifera, the 'twine-bearing vine', is the one most commonly responsible for wine.

even Noah drunk wine

The exact date when our ancestors realised that wild vines could produce a drink is not known. Noah's activities on Mount Ararat in Armenia are sometimes cited as the first example of intentional wine making. There are claims of ancient wine makers in the Far East, and there is certainly evidence that the Egyptians were making wine more than a thousand years BC.

Not much later, at around 1000 BC, wine was taken to the two countries that now account for nearly half the world's total wine production: France and Italy. Along the expanding Greek empire, both the vine and the traditions of their god Dionysus spread, and especially Romans adopted Dionysus with relish under the name of Bacchus.

It is likely that the wine produced at this time was fairly crude and needed the addition of some preservative or flavouring to keep it drinkable until the next vintage. It may well have been at this time that the process of resinating wine began, still seen today in Greek retsina.

While the Greeks kept their wine in open amphorae, the Romans managed to develop wine containers not unlike the barrels and bottles of today and so made great strides towards the development of wines that were built to last and mature.

wine in Europe - the beginning

Vineyards were developed north and west of Marseilles. By AD 400 there were vines being cultivated to produce wine throughout the south of France, around Bordeaux, along the valleys of the Rhóne and the Loire, in Burgundy and Champagne, and even along the two great German wine rivers, the Rhine and Moselle. The fact that wine was easily transported by river doubtless played a part in the siting of these ancient vineyards.

By the change of the first Millennium, wine was being made all over Europe, largely by the Church, which had practically a monopoly on vine-growing and wine making skills, not to mention land. In the Middle Ages there were even vineyards all over southern England, but the dissolution of monasteries under Henry VIII brought a four-hundred-year pause in the cultivation of the vine in Britain.

Disappearance of vineyards in Britain did not stop the British drinking wine, however, and Britain continued to play an important part in shaping the world's wine industry. In the 12th century, when Bordeaux and Aquitaine were ruled by Henry II, the important trade in wine between western France and Britain began. The word 'claret' is a corruption of the light, red claret wines produced by the French and sent to Britain. More recently "clarets" have been made all over the world. Claret is still an established style of wine in Spain, for example.

The one country in which the word claret is hardly ever used is, ironically enough, France.

sherry and port wine

"Sherry" is another term used the world over, with the exception of its birthplace, Jerez in southern Spain. Again it was trading links with northern Europe that established sherry's worldwide reputation. The "sack" of Shakespeare's time is thought to have been dry or seco wine from Jerez.

The Methuen Treaty of 1703 between England and Portugal played a major part in the development of the port wine industry. Preference was granted under this treaty to wines from Portugal and this provided great stimulus to the wine producers in the hinterland of Oporto. This original port is emulated today from Berkeley to Barossa.

Over the last three centuries Vitis Vinifera has been taken from Europe to almost all the corners of the globe in which it could possibly flourish. Monks in the retinue of Spanish and Portuguese conquistadors brought their wine making traditions to Central and South America and up the west coast to North America.

Dutch settlers took the vine to their new territory on the Cape, just as the British developed a wine industry in Australia.

African wines

general

Red, white or rosé; sparkling or still; dry, medium or sweet - there are wines to suit most palates, and most pockets.

Although half the world's wines comes from only two countries - France and Italy - the vine has been cultivated all over the globe, wherever the conditions allow it to flourish.

Northern Africa is not well known for its wines, as the production has always remained low due the religious reasons, however, even in those countries wine is still produced and some of them can offer surprising experiences to adventurous.

During recent years, along with Australia, South Africa's wines have gained publicity and markets for their quality. This trend doesn't seem to be slowing, as more and more quality South African winemakers and wines are coming to the markets.

north African wines

general

Non-wine-drinking, much wine-producing countries are in trouble when they lose their major customer and this is the position in which Algeria, and to a certain extent Tunisia and Morocco, found themselves in the early sixties when they established their independence from France. Since then there has been a resurgence of militant Islam with its strict prohibition of alcohol and France has found alternative sources of rich red wine in bulk.

This has caused problems, particularly for Algeria, who in 1961 was the world’s sixth biggest wine producer with up to forty percent of the population involved in the wine industry in some way.

Since then Algeria has found new markets, first former Soviet Union and, to a lesser extent, Germany, but she had still to decide whether to continue to produce large quantities of wine of decreasing quality from badly tended vineyards on plains, or whether to switch to making less but better wine from vines planted further up the hillsides.

Algeria, being one of the closest wine regions to the equator, has never found any difficulty in producing wines high in alcohol and colour, ideal for blending with lighter, more acid wines such as those of southern France. Her whites tend to be much too full-blown for north European tastes and her best wines are reds from the hills of Tlemcen, Mascara, Haut Dahra, Zacca and Ain-Bessem.

The Tunisian wine industry, though only one-tenth as big as that of Algeria, faces the same problems. Her wines are similar, but at least Tunisia has a tourist trade to absorb some of her, domestically, unwanted wines. There is also the Tunisian speciality, a sweet white wine made from Muscat grapes and the wine industry is centred on the coast around the Gulf of Tunis.

It is generally agreed that Morocco, aided by the cooling breezes of the Atlantic, has greater potential as a serious wine producer than either Algeria or Tunisia. Her particular speciality is vin gris, a light, dry rosé not unlike some Provence rosés.

Sidi Larbi is usually a robust, vigorous red made near the coast between Rabat and Casablanca, but her best wine comes from the Atlas foothills between Meknes and Fes.

A little wine is also made in Egypt.

south african wines

general

Wine has been produced on the Cape ever since the first European settlers arrived there, and its Constantia dessert wine enjoyed great fame in the early part of the last century.

More recently the South African wine industry is unique in that about half of every vintage, harvested of course in February/March in the Southern Hemisphere, is promptly despatched to the government-run distilling industry to be made into the brandy and other spirits that are so popular within South Africa.

The quality of wine not disposed of in this way has been rising steadily, with the Cape’s ‘estate’ wines representing the best that South Africa has to offer wine lovers. Enthusiastic winemakers on these estates have been encouraged by South African wine companies’ interest in exporting, and in the establishing of the annual Nederburg Wine Auction as an encouragement to high standards in the winery.

Modern vinification equipment has been installed in most establishments so that the whites are now fermented at low temperatures. The reds are also fermented in temperature-controlled conditions and most wines now avoid the fault of being too alcoholic or coarse. There is still work to be done in the vineyards to improve the matching of grape varieties, or cultivars as they are called on the Cape, to specific areas and to ensure that grapes are harvested in the healthiest condition possible.

south african quality designation system

The South Africans have devised a detailed but easy-to-understand quality designation system. Better-quality wines are known as ‘Wines of Origin’, the best ones as ‘Wines of Origin Superior’. A neckband designates each wine with a quality control number and also indicates how specific its guarantee of quality is by a series of different coloured bands.

A blue band indicates that the wine is from one of South Africa’s fourteen designated wine areas. A red band shows that the wine is from a single specified vintage. A green band shows that the wine is made from at least eighty percent (one hundred percent for a Superior wine) of a single cultivar. ‘Estate’ wines are also specifically designated on the neck label, as well as having to conform to certain rules.

It is just as well that it is easy to spot these estate wines as some of their individual estate names can be difficult for non-Afrikaans speakers. South Africa’s more ordinary wines should not be overlooked, however, as many of them are considerably better than their counterparts in, say, France or Italy, and the South Africans are keen to keep export prices low.

common south african grape varieties

Pinotage is the most common red wine grape, a Cape speciality, a cross between Pinot Noir and the Cinsaut of the Rhône, sometimes confusingly known as Hermitage, hence the name. The strength and body of most South African Pinotage wines suggest that the grape takes more of its character from the Rhone than Burgundy.

Cinsaut is also grown fairly widely on its own and some estates put it to good use with Cabernet Sauvignon to make a blended claret-style of wine. Other successfully planted red wine grapes include the Shiraz and they are experimenting with a wealth of others, including Pinot Noir.

The average Cape white wine tends to be made to have a noticeable amount of residual sugar, zipped up by quite a bit of tartness, sometimes achieved by the addition of natural acids in such a relatively hot climate. Most common white wine is Steen, Stein or Chenin Blanc, the grape of the central Loire Valley, which transposes well on the Cape to make fairly full but distinctly flowery wines, sometimes with a little bit of gas left in them.

Another widely planted white wine grape is, curiously, the Palomino of Jerez, known here, even more curiously, as ‘the French grape’. Sémillon is known as ‘the green grape’, rather more logically, and South African Riesling, not the true Rhine Riesling, is what is usually meant if the word Riesling tout court appears on a wine label.

There are all sorts of European grape varieties that are currently being tried out on the Cape, including some of the new German crosses, but some of the most exciting whites are the late-harvested Rhine Rieslings. German influence is evident in the wineries of the Cape and nowhere more so than at Nederburg, where the luscious Edelkeur is made.

Another curiosity comes from the Allesverloren estate where one of the traditional port grapes, Tinta das Baroccas, is made by slightly fortifying the naturally fermented wine.

There are those on the Cape who feel that it is a mistake to assume that 100 percent varietal wines are inevitably superior, as implied by the Wine of Origin legislation, to those in which some other grapes have been added to the blends. This is particularly true of Cabernet Sauvignon and some estates are now blending in a little Merlot following the Bordelaise tradition.

Asian wines

general

Red, white or rosé; sparkling or still; dry, medium or sweet - there are wines to suit most palates, and most pockets.

Although half the world's wines comes from only two countries - France and Italy - the vine has been cultivated all over the globe, wherever the conditions allow it to flourish.

In Asia and Near East, wine making doesn't have as long traditions as in the West, however, in former Soviet Union countries wine has been made in vast quantities, although not always so refined as strong in flavour, there is potential for high quality, low priced wines in future.

Near-East, or Middle East as it is more commonly known, is not significant wine-producing region, however, especially Israel produces some very good white and red wines. Unfortunately, as these are mainly produced for domestic markets, for religious reasons they are made kosher killing the flavour of these wines.

far eastern wines

general

Just as much of the Western world falls within the climatological limits for successful grape growing, so does much of the East. There is a major difference between the two cultures, however, that has dampened potential Oriental enthusiasm for fermented grape juice.

True, there are many Eastern people to whom alcohol in any form is forbidden, but even those with a keen interest in ‘cups that inebriate’ as well as ‘cups that cheer’ have been accustomed to indulge in fermented rice mash or saké, in plum wine and in various forms of brandy rather than in the drink the drink the West calls ‘wine’. But this is slowly changing as Japan becomes increasingly ‘westernised’. Indeed Japan became a major force as a wine-buying nation in the ‘great Bordeaux boom’ of the early seventies.

Japanese wines

The Japanese borrow French wine-labelling customs quite shamelessly. It is fairly common to buy a bottle of ‘Japanese wine’ from a particular ‘Château’ described as Grand Cru Classé and Mis en bouteille au Château. Only the small-print Tokyo address suggests the wine did not come from Bordeaux, and some believe many producers of ‘Japanese wine’ help along the native product with a good dollop of imported French.

The majority of Japan’s best vineyards are, like the rest of her fruit-growing industry, within striking distance of Mount Fuji, in the Yamanashi plain around the city of Kofu just to the west of Tokyo.

The whisky from Sun Tory, for instance, who are responsible for distilling and importing vast quantities of whisky, own about 400 acres of vines at the foot of Mount Fuji, where they said to grow about 200 different grape varieties. Almost one-quarter of the nation’s wine production comes from grapes grown in this area, though Yamagata is another significant wine province, and in Okayama grapes are also grown outside. Koshu is a common grape variety.

There are also vineyards in the Republic of China whose wine is very good. It is difficult to find wine made from grapes grown in China outside the Republic, however.

wines of the former ussr

general

The Soviet authorities were not known for the generosity with which they dispensed statistics and assessments of Russia’s wine industry, one has to rely considerably on conjecture.

What is certain is that authorities were keen to develop wine as a gentler alternative to vodka among the Russian people. This meant that they imported huge quantities of wine from all over the world, wherever the price was right, and they had no spare wine for export.

It is doubtful in any case whether many Russian wines would have been that popular in the West. Perhaps because of their fierce winters, Russians seem to like their wines strong and sweet. They are still avid consumers of sparkling wine, shampanskoe, and have a similar disregard for the proprietorial rights of the producers of sherry and port.

near eastern wines

general

As in North Africa, most Near Eastern vineyards are tended by those not allowed to indulge in the alcoholic pleasure afforded by them. Today more grapes end up as dried fruit than as wine.

Turkey is trying to develop a wine export business and offers, for instance, the irresistibly-named Buzbag, which, like most of her wines with export potential, is a full-bodied red that is high on alcohol and low on subtlety.

Lebanon still continues to produce some wine, perhaps as a result of French influence. There is some good, crisp rosé and the excellent ‘French’ red Château Musar.

Israeli vineyards produce Kosher wine and much of it comes from wineries founded by Rotschilds.

Beverages

Wines: europe

Red, white or rosé; sparkling or still; dry, medium or sweet - there are wines to suit most palates, and most pockets.

Although half the world's wines comes from only two countries - France and Italy - the vine has been cultivated all over the globe, wherever the conditions allow it to flourish.

Port, sherry and other fortified wines add to the variety of style, taste and region - a variety which creates much of the fascination and excitement of wine.

Austrian wines

Austria’s neutrality in European alignments has tended to keep the world’s wine drinkers in ignorance of remarkable value of its wines. The wines are anything but neutral, with lots of character and substance, like rather spicier versions of much German wine. Vinification techniques are advanced and most wines are well made.

The Austrians themselves are keen on the light, rather sweet reds of the Tyrol, but it is the better quality whites that are of particular interest. Austria has developed a precise quality designation system based on the German one for its wines, with the same Kabinett to Trockenbeerenauslese range of ‘predicates’.

This is logical since its vineyards are in many ways similar to those on the Rhine, planted with grape varieties such as the Rheinriesling, the Riesling of Germany, and Müller-Thurgau. The lower latitude makes most Austrian wines stronger in alcohol and all quality wines have to be at least 10.5°.

The character of Austrian wine is exemplified by the native grape, the Grüner Veltliner, which combines a slight pungency with a good racy dash. Other local specialities include the heady wines of Gumpoldskirchen, made from the strangely named Rotgipfler and Zierfandler grapes and Heurigen that are so popular in special cafés of the same name in the suburbs of Vienna.

Heurigen serve wine of the most recent vintage by the jug, and very good it is too. Lively dry whites are part of Viennesse life.

major Austrian wine regions

Vienna is at the centre of Austria’s wineland. To the west is Wachau, where the firm of Lenz Moser is located, pioneers of the ‘high culture’ system of planting vines far apart and training them high for mechanical harvesting.

From this firm comes the branded wine Schluck. There are also extensive vineyards to the north of the city as well as Gumpoldskirchen to the south and Burgenland, particularly good for Austria’s undervalued dessert wines, to the southeast towards the Hungarian border. Oggau and Rust are wine centres here.

wines of cyprus

Cyprus has been acutely sensitive to British influence and for some time concentrated on producing light Cyprus sherry for penny-conscious Britons. In recent years the price of ‘proper’ sherry from Jerez has remained so stable as to allow Cyprus sherry trade to decline.

It is likely therefore that the winemakers in Cyprus will be concentrating increasingly on providing good-value table wines.

Wine production is in the hands of three major firms who are anxious to woo foreign customers; Cypriots themselves are not over-keen wine drinkers. Bellapais, a semi-sweet slightly sparkling white, has clearly been developed to follow in the footsteps of Mateus rosé.

Like most other Cyprus whites, it has a certain muskiness about it that some may find attractive. Aphrodite is a medium dry white, Arsinoe one of the best-known dry whites, while the far-from-delicate Othello is Cyprus’s red answer to demestica. Commanderia, the raisiny dessert wine, can be very good.

english wines

Like their counterparts in Luxembourg, aspiring wine makers in England are pushing their luck, only more so as they are even further north with even less sunshine to help them ripen their grapes.

It is surely no accident that interest in English wine increased so dramatically during and immediately after the two exceptionally hot summers of 1975 and 1976, when the sun shone long and hard to produce ripe grapes and a record vintage of half a million bottles in 1976.

The vagaries of the British climate have brought wildly varying yields in subsequent years, but there seems to be an enormous amount of enthusiasm for reviving an art that lapsed in England with the Dissolution of the Monasteries when monastic vineyards were dismantled.

There are now well over two hundred vineyards in production in the British Isles, mainly in southern England, but also in southern Wales and Ireland. The average vineyards holding is only about three acres and vine cultivation tends to be a weekend activity, though some growers in Kent and Sussex are producing wine on commercial lines.

common english wine types and grapes

Almost all vines planted are white, though some growers have managed to produce a fair red wine with Zweigelt grapes. One would expect English vineyard planters to look to Germany for inspiration when it comes to choosing grape varieties and Germany’s convenient and most popular grape, Müller-Thurgay, is widely planted in Britain too.

Some feel that the other newer German crosses such as Reichensteiner, Scheurebe and Schönberger are capable of producing more exciting wines in more reliable quantities. The American hybrid Seyval Blanc is grown successfully in England to produce fairly neutral wines that have no hint of the flavour usually associated with American wines.

The wines taste perhaps closest to German Trocken wines having no apparent sweetness, though the latitude usually demands the addition of sugar to the must, or chaptalisation, to bring alcoholic strength up.

English wines are necessarily expensive as they are all produced on a small scale and their makers, and buyers, are heavily taxed.

former Yugoslavian region wines

Up in the northeast in Slovenia, the wines produced are obviously related to their counterparts across the border in Austria and Hungary: full-flavoured whites with a nice nip of acidity to keep them in balance.

The wine consumed locally is often considerably drier than that exported, and most popular grape varieties, usually specified on the label of wines from any region, are Laski Riesling, a relative of Italian Riesling, Sauvignon and the full, ‘spicy’ Traminer.

In vineyards in the northwest of the country are the same varieties as are grown so successfully in the northeast of Italy: Cabernet, Merlot, Pinot Bijeli (Bianco) and Tokaj (Tocai).

Down the Dalmatian coast the grapes planted are the usually local specialities and the wine not much exported, though the pungent white Zilavka from around Mostar has its followers abroad.

The heady and almost unpronounceable red Vranac is Montenegro’s chief contribution to wine repertoire, while further south in Macedonia the reds, and whites, are even more robust, reminding the visitor of his proximity to Greece.

Here, and in the great wine-producing republic of Serbia to the north, are planted a wide variety of grapes, with Prokupac being a vigorous red. The vineyards of the Fruska Gora Hills, north of Belgrade, produce Sauvignon and Traminer.

French wines

general 

To wine drinkers and winemakers all over the world, France is the cradle of truly great wine, providing models to which all may aspire but will rarely match.

Although the "New World" producers in California and Australia are catching up fast, they have yet to reach that state of maturity in their winemaking traditions that gives them wines of the greatness and complexity of first growth clarets, the finest white burgundies, classic sauternes and those under-appreciated treasures, the best wines of the Rhóne and the Loire.

France is fortunate in containing regions ideally suited to the production of fine wine within her frontiers, but this is not the whole story. There are many other parts of the world at least as capable of making truly great wine because of their geographical and meteorological situation.

The reason that they are not yet doing so is that their wine industries are either very young or, in the case of China for instance, simply non-existent. The French, however, have been making wine since colonisation by the Greeks and Phoenicians. Their development of winemaking skills later received a great boost when Aquitaine in the west came under the sway of the English in the twelfth century.

The thirsty English and, in particular, Scottish, encouraged trade in wine between themselves and Bordeaux and La Rochelle, just as a trade was built up in exporting the wines made further east to other parts of Britain and elsewhere. The French have a tradition of making and drinking wine that goes back so very much longer than most of their wine-making rivals, it is small wonder that they are capable of making such sublime wines.

riding on the fame

Until recently there has been a tendency for all French winemakers to bask in the reflected glory of the finest of her wines, the top one per cent perhaps. It has been all too easy for the French to trade on their name and their wines have accordingly become increasingly expensive.

There are now signs that they are becoming aware of the fact that there are winemakers in other countries, and relatively successful ones at that. At the top end of the wine market there have been some embarrassing comparisons between, say, classed growth clarets and Californian Cabernet Sauvignons, just as Burgundy has had to see some of her finest wines rivalled by the best of Australian Pinot Noirs and California Chardonnays.

At the other end of the scale, the French are at last starting to realise that the quality of their vin ordinaire must be improved if it is to satisfy consumers, and warrant all those thousands of acres planted with grapes in the south of the country where the bulk of the grape harvest is produced. France vies with Italy each year to be the world's biggest wine producer, but well over half, and often as much as three-quarters, of what she produces is ordinary table wine, vin de table, the majority of it red and of pretty mediocre quality.

The French government is trying to encourage the planting of better-quality grape varieties in the place of the very high-yielding sorts that have been popular in the past. And they are trying to elevate more wines from the straight vin de table category to the next quality level up, vin de pays.

classifications

To qualify as a vin de pays, a wine must come from a certain specified region, be made from certain specified grape varieties in not so great a quantity that the grape juice is "stretched", and must be subjected to official tasting tests.

The development of this vin de pays category has brought about a rise in quality of the wines that are made in these southern "workhorse" regions of France.

The French have always been pioneers in wine legislation and these vin de pays laws were modelled, albeit further down the scale in quality, on her famous Appellation d'Origine Contrólée (AC) laws, which have been developed throughout this century and on which so many other systems of designating "quality wines" have been based throughout the world.

The French system uses as its basic tenet that the quality of a wine is determined most importantly by the exact spot where it was produced. For a wine to qualify as Appellation "X" Contrólée it must have been made from very carefully controlled quantities of prescribed grape varieties grown in a vineyard in the exactly delimited area of "X" and made to certain specifications.

This is the highest official national quality designation in France and about fifteen per cent of all wine produced in France each year is AC. The AC system operates in a series of ever more specific delimited areas, rather like a set of Russian dolls, so that the less general "X" is, in terms of the geographical area it describes, the better any wine described as Appellation "X" Contrólée is likely to be.

For example, Pauillac being a village, or commune, in the Médoc region in Bordeaux, means, AC Pauillac is likely to be better than AC Médoc (which could come from anywhere in the Médoc), which in turn is likely to be better than AC Bordeaux, which could have come from any of the fringe, lesser areas of Bordeaux which have not earned themselves their own specific reputation.

French wines

Bordeaux - one

For a wine lover to say he didn't like bordeaux would be about as likely as for a musician to say he didn't like Mozart. Bordeaux must produce the most interesting wines, and more of them, than anywhere else in the world.

Their fascination lies in their ability to last and develop such nuances of flavour at each different stage of their maturity, their capacity to differ so captivatingly according to the exact spot or precise year the grapes were grown. Claret and port are the two wines that are capable of provoking endless discussion.

Red Bordeaux has been called claret ever since the very much lighter reds shipped from Aquitaine to the England of Henry II were known as claret. The British and Dutch have always been particularly fond of it, though it is now shipped to wine connoisseurs all over the world. The characteristics of red Bordeaux are that it is a dry, fruity wine when young, one that is not as high in alcohol as some produced in less temperate climates.

Although there is an increasing tendency to make wines for earlier consumption, particularly the cheaper wines, the best wines are built to last. They are vinified so as to extract maximum fruit, colour and tannin from the grapes and it is the tannin that keeps the wines lively over the decades while they mature into wonderfully complex liquids with different 'layers' of flavour that can be relished as the wine develops in the bottle, and even in the glass.

Bottles of claret made in the last century are still delighting those who can afford them. The other great classic of the Bordeaux region is sauternes, wonderfully rich, golden wines that taste as good as they look, though without the cloying aftertaste of cheaper sweet whites. Château Yquem is the most famous and most expensive of these unfashionably sweet wines.

white Bordeaux´ wines

Bordeaux also produces huge quantities of lesser white wine; about one-third of all produced each vintage is white. Some of this is still fairly mediocre quality, but there is increasing skill in producing dependably crisp and inexpensive dry whites for early consumption. Care should be taken when choosing bottles of white bordeaux as it is not always made crystal clear which are dry and which are medium dry or sweet.

There is a trend towards putting the dry wines in green bottles and the sweeter ones in clear glass. A small proportion of the dry white bordeaux produced is worth maturing to produce wines of the classic greatness of a Château Laville-Haut Brion and other good white Graves properties. Very little rosé is produced in the Bordeaux region.

ac wines

The most basic sort of wine that can be recognised as bordeaux is straight Appellation Bordeaux Contrólée. This may be a blend of wines from more than one appellation within the Bordeaux region, or it may come from a part of the region not entitled to its own AC, or the bottler may decide to sell it as AC Bordeaux rather than the more complicated or less fashionable AC to which it is also in fact entitled.

Many of these AC Bordeaux, both red and white, carry the name of a 'château' on the label. This does not necessarily serve as evidence that there is indeed a sumptuous building of that name, which is surrounded by the vineyard from which the wine came. There is an official register of all these so-called petits châteaux, and so long as the plot(s) of land from which wine to be sold under this château name are registered, this is perfectly legal.

The plots need not be contiguous.

The 'château' need not exist as anything more than a building in which the wine is made. The AC Bordeaux Supérieur sounds, wrongly, as though it is one step up from AC Bordeaux. The word 'supérieur' of course refers not to elevation but to alcoholic strength.

If a wine meets the minimum strength allowed for Bordeaux Supérieur, usually half a degree more than the 100 minimum for bordeaux rouge say, then the bottler might decide to label the wine as Bordeaux Supérieur. This is often a commercial decision, however, based on the hope that the consumer's knowledge of French in general, and of the intricacies of the Bordeaux AC system in particular, is not too detailed.

The next step up in quality for the wines of Bordeaux is to the 'generic wines', those which carry an AC identifying them as having come from one of the main geographical areas that go to make up the Bordeaux region, often known as 'the Gironde' after the département it coincides with and the estuary which it straddles.

médoc wines

On the left bank of the Gironde is the most prestigious red wine area, the Médoc, which starts as the Haut-Médoc and then flattens out as the lesser Bas-Médoc towards the Atlantic, north of the city of Bordeaux itself. In the Haut-Médoc are the great majority of those mouth-watering château names, like Mouton-Rothschild and Latour, of which all have heard but few have tasted.

graves region

Graves is the other great red wine area on the left bank and, unlike the Médoc, it also produces some very good whites, usually, though not always, fairly dry.

On the right bank, the most commonly encountered 'generics' are also red wines: St Emilion and Pomerol, while a little further north up the Gironde on the right bank are the Premieres Côtes de Blaye and the Côtes de Bourg. Nearby are Lalande de Pomerol and Fronsac, as well as Côtes de Fronsac, and there are also a number of satellite communes around St Emilion.

The great difference between left- and right-bank wines is in the proportion of the different Bordelais grape varieties that are commonly used.

On the left bank, the tight, tough Cabernet Sauvignon reigns supreme, usually comprising at least half the grapes planted, to be supplemented with equal proportions of its relative the Cabernet Franc and the much softer fruitier Merlot, with perhaps a little of the local Malbec and Petit Verdot.

On the right bank, in St Emilion and Pomerol, Merlot is the dominant grape variety, so that wines here mature earlier and are in general plummier and softer than those from Médoc and Graves. Bourg and Blaye wines tend to have a style somewhere between the two and are usually relatively straightforward and lightweight.

white wine regions

Between these two stretches of red wine vineyards are several areas better known for their white wines. Entre-Deux-Mers is in fact 'between the two seas' of the rivers Dordogne and Garonne that go to make up the Gironde estuary. Although this area produces much red wine, wines carrying the generic appellation Entre-Deux-Mers are usually white wines, dry whites.

Up in its north-west corner is another, much smaller generic appellation, Graves de Vayres (nothing to do with Graves which is much further south), which again is a dry white bordeaux appellation.

To the south and west of Entre-Deux-Mers are the sweet white bordeaux appellations, of which the best known are Premieres Côtes de Bordeaux, Loupiac, Ste-Croix-du-Mont, Cérons, Barsac and, giving its name to wines all over the world, Sauternes. Barsac and Sauternes are both capable of producing superb wines (which will probably not be sold as simple generics), while the other generic appellations can often produce sound, clean dessert wines.

Above all of these generic wines in terms of quality are those entitled to the appellation of a single commune, and this group includes the crème de la crème, individual 'classed growths', those properties that have been included in the official classifications of the best wines of the Bordeaux region. The most famous of these is the 1855 Classification of the Médoc and Graves. This is often referred to as a 'first growth claret'.

wine communes

In the Médoc the 'best classified' commune is Pauillac, which includes three of today's five first growths within its parish boundaries. Other prestigious communes include Margaux and St Julien, with St Estêphe housing classed growths too.

Five of the sixty-two châteaux included in the 1855 Classification have to make do with the appellation Haut-Médoc, since they do not fall within the boundaries of communes with their own AC. Added to the Médoc Châteaux Lafite, Latour, Margaux and (added later) Mouton-Rothschild, in the lofty ranks of 1855 first growths, is Château Haut-Brion which, together with its neighbour and rival Château La Mission-Haut-Brion, ranks as one of the best properties in the Graves, whose wines have a curious 'stoney' texture to them.

Top properties across the river in St Emilion are Châteaux Ausone and Cheval Blanc, which manage to fetch even higher prices than Médoc first growths, as does the supreme wine of Pomerol, Château Pétrus.

In Sauternes, where the Sémillon grape so obligingly ripens and then succumbs to pourriture noble to produce rich, luscious dessert wines in good years, the most prestigious property is Château d'Yquem, not just a premier cru but the only premier grand cru in Bordeaux. Here the Marquis de Lur Saluces painstakingly makes the world's most famous sweet white wine, with several of his neighbours providing treats for discriminating wine lovers.

French wines

burgundy 

The Burgundian may question the Bordelais' claim to make the finest red wines in the world, but in the sphere of dry white wines, he is confident of having no serious rival. While it is fair to say that Burgundy owes much to supple, fulsome red wines for its reputation, it could be argued that this is being maintained largely on the basis of the powerful white wines, which are made nowhere else in the world.

Burgundy is a region fraught with difficulty for the wine drinker. One of the chief drawbacks is its size, or rather lack of it. This means that the topflight wines are produced only in very limited quantities and only at very high prices. A further difficulty is that quality is so much more variable, and so much more difficult to assess from the label or wine list.

Because the individual vineyards tend to be split in several small plots, sometimes hundreds of small plots, there is no consistency between different bottles carrying the same vineyard name.

producing and naming burgundy wines

Negociants, or shippers, rather than individual vineyard owners, are all-important in Burgundy. They will buy in many different parcels of wine, each entitled to the same name, and blend them together to sell their own style of, say, Gevrey-Chambertin or Chambolle-Musigny Les Amoureuses. It is important, therefore, to find out which négociant produces consistent wines, in a style that you like.

As if all this were not complicated enough, there is the tricky naming within the region. Gevrey-Chambertin is a village as is Chambolle-Musigny, whereas Les Amoureuses is a vineyard in Chambolle-Musigny. One would expect, therefore, Chambolle-Musigny Les Amoureuses to be a finer wine than straight Chambolle-Musigny, or Gevrey-Chambertin.

These two villages were originally called simply Chambolle and Gevrey, having later added the name of their most famous vineyards, Le Musigny and Le Chambertin respectively. So a fair rule when buying Burgundy wine is 'the longer the name the smarter the wine —unless it's 'Le something' (Le Musigny, for example).

Burgundy is not one homogeneous region, but the name is used to include Chablis in the north, the prestigious heartland of the Côte d'Or, the Côte Chalonnaise and the Mâconnais in the south and even, sometimes, Beaujolais.

chablis

Chablis is sixty miles to the north-west of the start of 'Burgundy proper' and produces, from the Chardonnay grape, very dry white wines, sometimes with a tinge of green. The greatest of these, Grand Cru Chablis, are capable of maturing over many years into firm and fascinating wines.

The Côte d'Or (golden slope) is where Burgundy's greatest wines are made. In the northern half, known as the Côte de Nuits and centred on Nuits-St-Georges, are most of the finest red burgundies: Le Chambertin, Le Musigny and the wines of the prestigious and wildly expensive Domaine de la Romanée Conti.

The classic red burgundy grape Pinot Noir has yet to find a home as accommodating as the vineyards around Gevrey-Chambertin, Morey-St-Denis, Chambolle-Musigny, Vosne Romanëe and Nuits-St-Georges. The Côte de Beaune, the southern half of the Côte d'Or is centred on the town of Beaune, where the famous Hospices de Beaune charity wine auction is held every year.

Great white burgundies such as Corton Charle-magne, Le Montrachet and Meursault are made on the Côte de Beaune, whose villages Aloxe-Corton, Savigny-lès-Beaune, Pommard, Volnay, Monthëlie, Auxey-Duresses and Santenay are capable of producing fine burgundy wines.

The classic white burgundy grape is Chardonnay more reliable from year to year than Pinot Noir. In most white burgundy wine is dependable (if expensively so), but there have been disappointments with red burgundy wines.

At its best it can be sublime, but many wine drinkers outside Burgundy itself are taking their time getting used to the lighter 'French' style of red burgundy that is now more common than the fuller, heavier 'English' style burgundies that some merchants exported when Appellation Contrólée laws were not quite so strict.

The most basic 'generic' burgundy is Bourgogne Grand Ordinaire, usually rather lighter than the next step up, AC Bourgogne. Bourgogne Passe-tout-grains is a mixture of Gamay and Pinot, with Pinot characteristics becoming stronger as the wine matures.

white burgundy wines

The most basic white burgundy wine is Bourgogne Aligote, Aligotë being a local grape producing tart, light wines. Côte de Beaune-Villages and Côte de Nuits-Villages come from special vineyards.

In the hinterland of the Côte d'Or are the Hautes Côtes, which are producing lighter wines made from Pinot and Chardonnay, and these grapes are also capable of producing sound, attractive wines when planted further south around Rully, Mercurey, Givry, Montagny and Buxy.

In the Mâconnais to the south of this, Macon Blanc and its popular neighbour, Pouilly Fuissé, are better bets than Macon Rouge; the latter is usually made from Gamay grape, which produces mediocre wine in northern Burgundy, while the former must be made from Chardonnay.

The Gamay comes into its own, however, in the Beaujolais region immediately to the south. Here the grape is solely responsible for those juicy reds, Beaujolais, Beaujolais-Villages and, at the top of the scale, the Beaujolais crus': Moulin-à-Vent, Morgon, Juliénas, Côte de Brouilly, Brouilly, Fleurie, Chénas, Chiroubles, and St Amour in descending order (approximately) of firmness.

Unlike burgundy from further north, these are wines to be drunk young. This principle has been taken to its logical conclusion in the appearance of beaujolais nouveau, or beaujolais primeur, every November 15th. These wines, vinified fast and bottled only weeks after the harvest, should be drunk (and forgotten?) as soon as possible.

loire

You can find any wine you like along the banks of the beautifully languid Loire: red, white or pink; still or sparkling; bone dry to lusciously sweet.

vineyards

There are several distinct winemaking areas as one travels up the river. Around Nantes at the mouth are the Muscadet vineyards, where the Muscadet grape is planted to produce light, dry, sharp wines, the sort with so few distinguishing marks that they are the blind taster's bête noire. Among the Muscadet is planted another grape variety, Gros Plant, which is responsible for similar though tarter wines, Gros Plant Nantais.

Moving upriver there is Anjou, most famous for its rosé, which some may find rather more medium than dry. There is a classier version, Cabernet d'Anjou, which gets its perfume from the noble Cabernets Sauvignon and Franc and is usually a little drier too. Cabernet Franc is responsible for the Loire's best-known red wines, Chinon and Bourgeuil, light and dry with a curious scent to them.

A little downstream from the town of Angers is a quirk of nature, a tiny area that is capable of producing wonderfully rich dessert wines from the Chenin Blanc grape grown on the Coteaux du Layon. Bonnezeaux and Quarts de Chaume are the appellations here.

Chenin Blanc is the usual white wine grape of this middle Loire section around Angers and Vouvray and is put to work to produce honeyed, flowery wines of all degrees of sweetness, the best of which can last for decades.

It is often forgotten that Vouvray can produce some of the world's most classic white wines, unyielding, long-lasting and very rewarding for those in search of a sweet or medium dry white which, if well made, can mature in bottle for years while never losing the honeyed delicacy of the Chenin grape.

Savennières has its own appellation, though the most commonly seen are the medium dry Vouvrays made for early consumption. Also made around Vouvray and, particularly, Saumur, are sparkling wines made by the méthode champenoise and often good value alternatives to champagne.

There are also some reds produced here: Anjou Rouge, Rouge de Touraine, Saumur-Champigny and, to take the place of overpriced beaujolais, Gamay de Touraine.

Sauvignon de Touraine is its white wine equivalent and the blackcurrant-fresh dry wines made from this grape, widely planted in Bordeaux, are particularly popular in the Central Vineyards of the Loire. Best known are Sancerre and Pouilly Fume (nothing to do with Burgundy's Pouilly Fuissé), which even experts find hard to distinguish.

They are made very close to each other around the villages of Sancerre and Pouilly-sur-Loire on opposite sides of the river well south of Orleans. Other, similar wines come from Menetou-Salon, Quincy and Reuilly.

rhone and alsace

rhone

The Rhóne is now well past its heyday, when Hermitage was thought of as the king of wines and Châteauneuf-du-Pape was a prerequisite for any wine list. These two are the region's most famous wines, one from the north, the other from the south, the two zones into which the Valley is climatologically and viticulturally split.

In the north the great, dark Hermitage is made from the Syrah grape along with other similar, though usually lesser, reds such as Côte Rôtie, Comas, St Joseph and Crozes Hermitage. Also in the north are two white "curiosities", Condrieu and Château Grillet, both made from the Viognier grape and both deliciously dry, yet flowery.

To the north of Avignon, much of the wine qualifies only as AC Côtes-du-Rhone, slightly spicy, "warm" tasting wine. The wine on which these everyday wines are modelled is Châteauneuf-du-Pape, of which there are as many styles as there are grape varieties in the average blend. The best are broad, peppery and strong and will last for many years.

Gigondas and Vacqueyras are made in the same mould around villages of the same names to the north-east towards Côtes de Ventoux, which has its own appellation for its Grenache-based reds and rosés. Other similar wines of this region, the fringes of the southern Rhóne valley, are Coteaux du Tricastin, Côtes du Vivarais and Côtes du Luberon.

As this region is so close to Provence, it is hardly surprising that a high proportion of rosés are made, the local grape Grenache being particularly suitable for pink wines. Lirac and Tavel are the best known, the latter being very strong indeed. This is not great white wine country.

alsace

After being fought over for hundreds of years, the inhabitants of this absurdly pretty region have stopped worrying about whether they are German or French and have got on with developing a uniquely Alsatian style. This goes as much for winemaking as anything else.

The wines of Alsace combine the flowery, fragrant grape varieties of Germany with the techniques of French wine-makers. All wines are fermented out to dryness in such a way as to minimise the use of chemicals and maximise the amount of fruit, with the aim of encapsulating in the bottle the exact flavour of the grapes that went into it.

It is not surprising therefore that winemakers in Alsace (who incidentally have managed to stave off take-overs from mammoth outside concerns better than any of their counterparts elsewhere in France) have chosen to name their wines so simply, after the grape varieties from which they were made.

In Alsace the entire region there has just one AC, Alsace (currently being supplemented by the much disputed new AC Grand Cru), and to this is added on the label the name of the grape. In Alsace the Riesling is recognised as king, as it is on the other side of the Rhine in Germany, and this produces the noblest and longest-living wines of Alsace.

Outside Alsace, however, the best known variety is often Gewurztraminer, literally "spicy Traminer", whose aroma is uniquely perfumed and exotic, only to be followed by that characteristically Alsatian surprise, a dry finish on the palate.

Another noble grape variety in Alsace is Pinot Gris or Tokay d'Alsace. This has no connection with the famous Hungarian Tokay and here makes heady, rich yet dry wines. Muscat, which is planted all over the world, from Asti to Setubal, retains its typically grapy smell in Muscat d'Alsace, and yet its lack of sweetness in the mouth makes it particularly popular as an aperitif.

Rather lesser grape varieties, though they are still often named on the label, are Sylvaner and Pinot Blanc. There has been an increasing tendency to plant the latter rather than the former as it gives "rounder" wines that are not quite so sharp. Neither of these varieties makes wines that are meant to be aged.

Other, slightly cheaper Alsace wines will be sold as Edelzwicker, or sometimes under a brand name such as Chevalier or Flambeau d'Alsace. These will usually be mixture of grape varieties, usually Sylvaner and Pinot Blanc in the main. They have the characteristic fragrant "nose" with a dry taste, unlike the much sweeter wines made from similar grapes in Germany.

Almost all Alsace wine is bottled in Alsace itself, a policy which usually achieves its desired effect of keeping a certain quality and freshness in the wines. They can be spotted by their tall, elegant green flute bottles, and by the fact that most labels seem to carry an unusual mixture of German and French words on them.

Careful scrutiny of Alsace wine labels pays off as makers call their best wines "Reserve Personnelle" or perhaps "Selection Exceptionelle", but these terms, which can make all the difference between a straightforward wine and a great one, are usually printed unduly modestly.

Vendange Tardive is the Alsatian equivalent of Late Harvest Spätlese and these wines are keepers.

A small amount of Pinot Noir is grown to make light, red wines for local consumption.

sparkling wines 

There is nothing more excitingly special than a really good champagne. There are few drinks as nasty as a cheap sparkling wine. In Europe and most of the rest of the world (though not the USA) only the sparkling wine made in the Champagne region in north-eastern France by the famous méthode champenoise may be called champagne. Everything else is just sparkling wine.

There are several ways of putting bubbles into wine to make it sparkling, each of which has a different effect on the resulting wine, which of course is a function of the initial quality of the still wine. There seem to be no still wines more suited to being turned into sparkling wines than the firm, dry wines of the Champagne region.

Those in other parts of the world who aspire to making a really great sparkling wine always try to use a base wine as similar as possible to the still wines of Champagne.

production of champagne

Any method of making wine sparkle involves getting carbon dioxide into the wine in order to form bubbles, as small and as long-lasting as possible, when the wine is eventually opened. The méthode champenoise is the classic way of achieving this. A careful blend of still base wines is made and, together with specially cultivated yeasts and a little bit of sugar, is put into champagne bottles and sealed with a crown cork.

Bottles are left to rest in the cool, dark cellars of the Champagne region usually for up to three years. The sugar and the yeast react together to provoke a second fermentation, thereby increasing the alcoholic content of the wine, and giving off as a by-product carbon dioxide.

The sediment that forms as a result of this alcoholic fermentation eventually falls to lie on the underside of the bottle and the wine gains in complexity as it matures in contact with this mixture of dead yeast cells.

The liquid in these bottles is now good, dry champagne, but the sediment has to be removed if we are to persist in our liking for crystal clear wines. The development of a technique for removing this sediment, together with the advent of strong bottles and champagne corks, was the most important part of the evolution of champagne.

The bottles are moved gently from their horizontal position and put into pupitres, racks with holes for bottle necks which are gradually tilted so as to take the bottles from nearly horizontal to nearly vertical upside-down. Each time this is done, by dextrously skilled workers called remuers, literally "shakers", they are also given a little twist, which encourages the passage of the sediment from the underside of the bottle to the cork.

The bottles are then moved, still upside-down and vertical, to baths of a special solution which freezes the neck of the bottle and the sediment inside so that when the crown cork is popped off, this is ejected as a frozen pellet, a process called dégorgement. The bottles are then filled with wine mixed with a little bit of sugar, the dosage, according to how sweet the champagne is designed to be.

The driest are usually called Brut, then comes Extra Dry, Sec, Demi Sec and Rich in ascending order of sweetness. There are very few champagnes indeed, even those called Brut, which do not have a little sweetness added to them at this stage. After a few months' rest to "marry" the dosage and the wine, the wine is ready for shipment and sale.

The transfer method of making sparkling wines relies on the same principle of inducing a second alcoholic fermentation in each bottle as the méthode champenoise. The difference is that bottles are not individually disgorged. The sediment is removed by emptying, filtering and refilling the bottles under pressure.

tank method

The tank method (cuvée close, bulk fermentation or Char-mat process) is one of the most common methods of making sparkling wine. Instead of inducing a second fermentation in individual bottles, so as to get the benefit of maturing the wine on the sediment in as small a container as possible, the yeast and sugar mixture is added to the still wine as it is stored in huge tanks.

After fermentation the sediment is filtered out and the wine bottled under pressure straight from the tank. This is not allowed in France for any AC sparkling wine (vin mousseux).

The cheapest method of making sparkling wine is carbonation: simply injecting carbon dioxide into the tanks holding the wine. This usually produces wines that have very large bubbles that cause a great commotion when the bottle is opened, but don't last for very long in the glass. This method is used only for the cheapest wines.

sparkling wines

champagne

Champagne is recognised, not just in France but throughout the world, as the ultimate in celebration drinks, "the king of wines and the wine of kings". It is the only AC wine in France that does not have to have Appellation Contrólée spelt out on the label. "Champagne" is enough.

It is commonly thought that the reason for the Champenois supremacy in the field of sparkling wine-making lies many feet below the surface of the vineyards, in the unique chalky subsoil of the region, whose composition was determined by a series of prehistoric earthquakes. Certainly the wine made from the Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier and Chardonnay grapes grown here seems ideally suited to champenization.

With this mix of grapes, the Champenois have to a certain extent made life difficult for themselves; the majority of grapes grown in the Champagne region are black rather than white, so the process of pressing is an extremely critical one.

It is vital to press the grapes so gently that none of the pigment from the black skins colours the juice, and the winemakers in Champagne take only the juice from the first pressings. Vineyards in Champagne are carefully graded according to the quality of the wine they produce, so there are a number of factors which can govern the ultimate quality of the champagne: the initial quality of the grapes, the length of time the wine is allowed to mature, the exact blend of wines used as base still wines.

Each champagne house tries to keep their own consistent style of champagne in their non-vintage blend, a blend of wines from different vintages. In particularly good years they will also make a vintage-dated wine which combines their own style with the characteristics of that particular year, and in recent years there have also appeared "de luxe" champagnes, vintage dated and made only from the best grapes. Dom Perignon was the first, but there are now many more.

A blanc de blancs champagne is one made only from white grapes, Chardonnay. A blanc de noirs is made only from Pinot, and will probably have more body and depth than the average champagne, which is made from a mixture of white and black grapes.

The two most important champagne towns are Rheims and Epemnay, though the much smaller town of Ay also has a few champagne houses. The grandes marques are those houses which have developed an international reputation for their wines, but in addition to them, an increasing number of growers make their own champagne, particularly popular with Parisians, who can combine a weekend expedition with a champagne-buying trip.

other sparkling wines

The French term for a sparkling wine is a vin mousseux, the best of which come from Saumur in the Loire, from chalky cellars remarkably. like those in Champagne. These wines are usually made from the Chenin Blanc grape, however, which gives them a quite different flavour from the uncompromising Chardonnay and Pinot blend. Similar, though usually rather less distinguished sparkling wines are made in Vouvray, Touraine and Anjou.

Burgundy has long had a tradition of making sparkling wines, in all grades of sweetness and shades of colour. The increase in prices of burgundy, and in the policing of its cellars, is making this a declining trade now.

Two AC sparkling wines are made in and around the Rhóne Valley. St Peray is a fairly full-bodied wine made from local grapes near Comas in the northern half of the valley, while Claimette de Die comes from the Dmôme tributary of the valley to the north-east of Montelimar of nougat fame. Brut is the dry version, while Tradition includes Muscat in the blend and is sweeter.

Blanquette de Limoux is an oddity, a clean, fairly dry sparkling wine made in the Languedoc-Roussillon region not otherwise associated with such elegance.

In addition to these officially classified wines, theme are many brands of French sparkling wine, some made around Bordeaux where theme has traditionally been an ample supply of inexpensive dry white wine.

other regions 

A number of good French wines are made in areas not traditionally thought of as wine-producing regions. Others don't fit into any geographical category. Good varietal wines are made at the Haut Poitou just south of Tours in the Loire, for instance, while St Poumçain-sur-Sioule, also on the fringes of the Loire, is producing reds and whites. Good Gamays come from the Côtes du Forez near Lyons as well as from the Auvemgne and near Roanne.

In the north of Burgundy is the dry white wine Sauvignon de St Bris as well as the light red wine Imancy, not unlike the still red wines of the Champagne region, all of which are called Coteaux Champenois. They can be either red or white, and one of the best known red wines is Bouzy Rouge.

midi and provence

More than one in every two bottles of wine produced in France comes from the grapes grown in the vast arc of vineyards that sweeps round the hinterland of the Mediterranean coast in the south and west of France. This is called the Midi or the Languedoc-Roussillon region of France and the regular wine lover may be puzzled by the fact that he reads and hears relatively little of what is surely a most important wine-producing area.

The explanation is simple: the majority of wine produced is not the stuff of which books or lectures are made. Most of the wine is red, much of it devoid of character, most of it produced by growers who have been encouraged to be more interested in quantity than quality. This is the territory of high-yielding grape varieties like the Aramon, which would be frowned upon by those winemakers who are trying to produce fine wine.

classification

Thanks to a more far-sighted approach now being adopted by some producers there, the proportion of "nobler" varieties grown, such as the Symah, Merlot, Cabernet and Grenache, is increasing and some wines of character are now coming out of the Languedoc-Roussillon. These include the vins de pays, often with the name of one of the Midi departments — Pyrenees Orientales, Aude, Herault, Tarn, Gard and Var — specified.

To qualify as a vin de pays a wine must come from a specified area, must usually reach 100 alcoholic strength (this depends on the latitude of the area) and must be made according to certain specifications which, among other things, restrict the yields allowed from the grapes, and must be approved by a tasting panel. This excellent step in the direction of quality in the Midi is complicated for the consumer only by the complexity of the names of the areas.

In addition to these vin de pays, a number of areas have earned their own reputation and, in an increasing number of instances, their own appellation. Coteaux du Languedoc, Côtes du Roussillon, Fitou, Corbières, Minemvois and St Chinian are all names to look out for. These names are increasingly earning themselves the right to full Appellation Contrólée status and, if they are made well, can be excellent value for money.

Further east are the light red wines of Costières du Gard, the expensive ones of Coteaux des Baux and the Provençal wines Coteaux d'Aix-en-Provence and Côtes de Provence, specialising in dry rosés from the Grenache grape. Other than these more general Provence appellations there are the rich red wines and rosé wines of Bandol, as well as the wines of Palette, Cassis (no connection with vin blanc cassis) and Bellet, near Nice, where theme are too many restaurants to allow much to escape the region itself.

Corsica falls within the scope of the French wine authorities and there are those who think they have been too liberal in their awards of ACs to the island. This may be true, but the vins de Corse are still good value for those in search of fiery reds and rosés.

jura

The Jura is a strangely isolated region in the hills between Burgundy and the Swiss border. It is the homeland of the nineteenth-century scientist Louis Pasteur, who did so much work in the study of the ageing process in wine. Today it is the preserve of wine producer Henri Maire, who controls a high proportion of production there.

The main wine names are Château-Chalon (not the name of a castle, but the name of a town), Ambois and l'Etoile. A whole mange of wines — red, white, rosé, still, sparkling — are made in the Jura, but its two specialities are vin jaune and vin de paille. Vin jaune, or "yellow wine", is the nearest France comes to producing sherry (though there is a village called Rasteau off the Rhóne Valley that comes close to making a sweet version).

Wine made from the Sauvignon grape is kept for many years in wood, where it gets stronger and darker and, it is thought, is subjected to the for yeast that is also present in Jemez.

This is a speciality of Château-Chalon in particular. Vin de paille is made by drying out grapes on straw mats (hence the name) and is therefore similar to the vino passito made in Italy. To complete the list of the Jura's oddities, there is also vin gris (actually pale rosé rather than grey) and Vin Fou, Henri Maire's brand of fizzy wine.

southwest france

One of the areas of France of most interest to those looking for well made though not necessarily expensive wines off the beaten track is that known commonly as the south-west of France. It is not a very satisfactory description, to punctilious geographers at least, but encompasses those wines made in the important vineyard areas to the east and south of the Bordeaux region.

Many of the red wines have much in common with the style of claret and there have been times when their wines have rivalled those of Bordeaux.

Traditionally one of the best known was Cahors, whose "black wines" were renowned for their longevity. Today most of them are vinified so as to be ready rather earlier, but still taste like full-bodied, coarser versions of claret. Bergemac is another important area whose wines, both red and white, are very similar in style to their counterparts in Bordeaux.

Côtes du Mammandais is close to Bergemac, both geographically and in the style of wine it produces, as is Côtes de Duras in Dordogne country. Pécharmant is another local red wine appellation and the wines of the Cótes de Buzet, most of them made at the local co-operative, are rapidly earning themselves a reputation abroad as having good staying power.

Montmavel white wine, made increasingly dry, is similar to white Bergerac, while Monbazillac produces sweet whites. These are sometimes referred to as "the poor man's sauternes".

In the south-west corner, towards the Pymenées, Madiran, Jurancon and Irouleguy, are, respectively, red, white and rosé wines, made from local grape varieties. Jurançon as a full, sweetish wine was famous as a "keep" The Brut version made now is much drier. Tursan is a similar VDQS appellation producing both red and white wines.

savoie

The Savoy region lies to the south of Geneva and its best known names are Crepy, Seyssel and Apmemont. Wines here are similar to those made over the border in Switzerland. The best wines of this region are light, dry whites, some of them sparkling.

vins doux naturels

These are not, strictly speaking, "wines" in the fully fermented sense of the word. They are lovely golden grapy drinks, usually made from the Muscat grape, by adding grape spirit to only partially fermented grape juice so as to retain much of the sweetness. These are a speciality of the south of France, with the Muscats of Beauines-de-Venise, Lunel, Frontignan and Rivesaltes being the varieties which are particularly well known.

german wines

German wine makers have traditionally been numbered among the world's great classic wine providers along their counterparts in Bordeaux and the Douro in port country. Their wonderfully honeyed, concentrated dessert wines, usually made from the fragrant, racy Riesling grape, will always deserve a place in any collection of world's great wines.

All of Germany's great wines are white - indeed only about ten percent of her vineyards are planted with red wine varieties and these are made into wines that are usually consumed locally. Germany is too far north to be capable of producing really fine red wine; her triumph is in matching a cool climate with just the sort of grapes that will be capable of ripening into light, white wines of great delicacy and, in good years, richness.

Rarely German wines are more than ten percent alcohol and her really special dessert wines are designed for the contemplative sipper rather than the alcohol enthusiast.

German wine classification

Unlike the French and Italian systems of describing better-quality wines, the German system is not based on geography but on ripeness. They have very strict hierarchy of different grades of wine, but these are not governed by exact spot where the grapes were grown.

The criterion used instead is that of the sugar content of the grapes used. This means that in a very warm year, such as 1975 and 1976, a very high proportion of the wine was regarded as top quality, while in a lean year with less sunshine, the proportion is very much lower.

The reason for this approach is simple. The most difficult and therefore the most prized achievement for German wine-grower is to harvest grapes that are high in sugar.

The most basic level of German wine is Tafelwein or table wine. This constitutes less than ten percent of a typical German vintage, however, and the most commonly exported grade of the wine is the next one up, Qualitätswein bestimmter Anbaugebiete or, rather more comfortably for non-German speakers, 'QbA'. This is wine coming from a particular specified wine region, of which Germany has eleven:

1. Ahr
2. Mosel-Saar-Ruwer
3. Mittelrhein
4. Rheingau
5. Nahe
6. Rheinhessen
7. Rheinpfalz
8. Hessiche Bergstrasse
9. Württemberg
10. Baden and
11. Franken

Wines in this category have to reach a certain minimum level of quality, but conditions are much more stringent for Germany's top-quality wines, Qualitätswein mit Pradikat (QmP), wines with one of the following 'predicates', in ascending order of richness:

1. Kabinett
2. Spätlese
3. Auslese
4. Beerenauslese and
5. Trockenbeerenauslese

Each of these terms owes its origins to the literal meaning of the words, but nowadays the methodical Germans do not leave such things to the vagaries of interpretation. The exact 'must' weight (sugar contents of the grapes) is laid down for each level of qualit, each grape variety and each wine region by the German Wine Law.

The most expensive wines in Germany are those painstakingly produced Trockenbeerebauslesen, so preciously, and expensively, unctuous that they are often put only into half-bottles.

Eiswein is another rarity, wine that is made from grapes picked when the juice is frozen and concentrated. This term may be added to any of the 'predicates' which are described earlier.

The naming of German wines on the label is easy for the producer, though not always so easy for the drinker. Most quality wines are described by the name of the village they come from, suffixed by 'er', followed by the name of the vineyards.

The confusion arises in that there are many much bigger collections of assorted vineyards that are grouped together under the name of the most famous vineyard in the collection. Bernkasteler Badstube, for instance is a Grosslage, collection of sites, rather than an Einzellage, a contiguous plot such as the Doktor vineyard.

Added to this name will also be the 'predicate' if the wine is entitled to one and sometimes the grape variety. Riesling is the most noble of all grape varieties planted in Germany, but it is losing ground to varieties that are easier to cultivate though perhaps have much less class.

Müller-Thurgau is widely planted and produces wines with something of the fragrance of a Riesling, but without the staying power. Silvaner is another fairly well-established variety, but there are an increasing number of new varieties developed especially for Germany's northern climate by viticultural researchers.

German wine is easy to spot in its tall, tapered bottles, green for the wines of the Moselle or Mosel, brown for wines coming from the Rhine regions, the wine the British have called 'Hock' since the days of Queen Victoria.

Perhaps the most common form of Rhine wine is Liebfraumilch, which may be any QbA wine with the characteristics of one made from Riesling, Müller-Thurgay or Silvaner. Rheinhesser is the chief supplier of this bland but very commercial wine.

German wine regions

The Moselle Valley, or Mosel-Saar-Ruwer region as it is know in Germany, is perhaps that part of Germany best known to wine lovers outside Germany. The perilously steep-sided Moselle is flanked by difficult-to-work vineyards on the slaty soil of the best parts of the valley.

This is spectacular country, producing some spectacular wines (if it didn't, the vine growers would long ago have given up such a difficult enterprise).

Wines here tend to be particularly light in alcohol, to have a slight 'prickle' on the tongue and sometimes a greenish tinge to their pale colour. Wines made in the tributary valleys of the Saar and Ruwer (Ruhr) are usually particularly light and sprightly.

Best-known villages include Ayl, Wiltingen, Scharzhof, Piesport, Wehlen, Graach, Bernkastel and Zell. Some of the best-known Grosslagen in the Moselle Valley are Wiltinger Scharzberg, Klüssenrather St. Michael, Piesporter Michelsberg, Bernkasteler Badstube, Ürziger Schwarzlay, Kröver Nacktarsch and Zeller Schwarze Katz.

The Rheingau is the great classic wine region of Germany and has traditionally produced an exceptionally high proportion of top-quality wine. As in the Moselle, the vineyards cover the gentle south-facing slopes of the river Rhine as it turns to run east-west between Mainz and Bingen.

This is the region of great single estates such as Schloss Johannisberg, Schloss Vollards, Schloss Eltz, Schloss Schönborn and Steinberg, now owned by the very active and important State Wine Foundation. The wines, like their original makers are, above all, noble.

Ninety percent of all the vines planted are Riesling and the south-facing position close to the river encourages a high level of ripeness in the grapes as well as the Edelfaule or 'noble rot' so important to produce the greatest dessert wines.

Just a look at the intricate labels of the great wine of the Rheingau is enough to set the taste buds of experienced wine-drinkers tingling in anticipation of these long-lasting, complex, elegant wines. Best-known names include Rudesheim, Geisenheim, Johannisberg, Winkel, Öestrich, Hattenheim, Hallgarten, Erbach, Eltville and Hockheim.

Also in the Rheingau is the State research station at Geisenheim, as well as the Kloster Eberbach, a beautiful 12th century monastery which now serves as headquarters for the German State Wine Foundation, a site for prestigious wine auctions as well as the government-run German Wine Academy.

Wines made along the Nahe tributary, which joins the Rhine from the west near Bingen, can often unite the 'raciness' of the wines of the Moselle with the body and firmness of those of the Rheingau. They are rarely quite as good as the best of either of these regions, but can produce fine wines from the Riesling, which accounts for about one-third of the area under vine.

Schloss Böckelheim, Bad Kreuznach and Rudesheimer Rosengarten are some of the best-known names among the wines of this area.

wine regions

The Rheinhessen is a large region that rarely produces wines of great distinction but is a valuable source of medium dry, easy-to-drink wines of the Liebfraumilch genus. This is the flatter, less interesting country that lies to the south across the Rhine from the classic Rheingau.

A wide variety of different grape varieties is planted here and one would not expect great longevity from many of them. Niersteiner Gutes Domtal and Oppenheimer Krötendrunnen are the best know Grosslagen here.

The Rheinpfalz or Palatinate region to the south is altogether more interesting, producing full, sometimes fat wines with plenty of aroma and character. Bürklin-Wolf is the best-known producer here and has done much to get these wines better know outside Germany.

Others with larger estates include Bassermann-Jordan and von Buhl. Forster Jesuitengarten is one of Germany's better known Einzellagen, while the corresponding Grosslage is Forster Mariengarten. Deidesheim and Bad Durkheim are also in the Rheinpalfz.

Even further to the south, just across the Rhine from Alsace, is the long strip of vineyards that constitute the Baden region. These vigorous wines, made chiefly by the co-operatives and from a wide range of grape varieties, are becoming increasingly better known outside Germany. The wines tend to be relatively low in acidity, but often appeal to those who find other German wines too sweet.

In the east around Würzburg, Franken (or Franconia) has built up such a following for its lively, slightly earthy wines, sometimes called Steinwein, that they are now relatively expensive and tend to be consumed locally. The green flask-shaped Bocksbeutel is used for Franken wines.

Other German wine regions whose wines are not often seen abroad are the red wine Ahr region to the north of the Moselle Valley; the fruity wine region of Mittelrhein just across Rhine from the Ahr; her smallest wine region, Hessische Bergstrasse; and Württemberg, on the Neckar tributary, where robust Riesling whites and Trollinger reds are made and consumed with relish by the locals.

old and new grape varieties

Researchers, notably at the Geisenheim viticultural station, have been experimenting with grape types that can give the same sort of fragrance as the Riesling but that are easier to grow or give higher yields. They include Morio Muskat, producing an intensely grapy wine; Scheurebe, which is widely planted in the Rheinpfalz, where it makes full, fat wines; Bacchus with its concentrated but short-lived scent; the light flowery Kerner; and the showy Huxelrebe. But only the noble Riesling gives tradition of supplying the world with complex, elegant, aristocratic wines.

Other more traditional varieties planted in Germany include the Ruländer (the Pinot Gris in Alsace), which produces fairly flabby wines, the undistinguished Gutedel (Chasselas in France) and the Spätburgunder (Pinot Noir) and Portugieser red wine grapes.

It is common in Germany to add a proportion of sweet unfermented grape juice, Süssreserve, to the wine after fermentation to make it sweeter. There is now a vogue for Trocken (dry) or Halbtrocken (half-dry) wines which have either no or less Süssreserve added to them.

Superior estate-bottled wines will be labelled Erzeugerabfüllung, while those produced by co-operatives have Winzergenossenschaft (co-operative) on the label.

The Germans are also enthusiastic makers and drinkers of Sekt, sparkling wine.

Greek wines

Greece gave us Dionysus, the later Bacchic god of wine, but has yet to match that gift in today’s world of wine. The Greeks themselves like their reds tough and coarse, their whites resinated, though there are signs of increasing adaptation to the tastes of non-Greek wine drinkers.

Achaia Clauss are major producers and responsible for the strong red and white Demestica, lubricator of many a moussaka. D. Courtaki is a leading producer of retsina, the speciality of Attica, which is resinated white, and sometimes pink, the wine tasting more as though it should be bought at a hardware shop than a wine merchant.

They are also experimenting with cabernet and Merlot and are producing a branded red wine called Apollo, which is not unlike a rioja. Château Carras is another attempt at importing winemaking techniques from Bordeaux.

Traditional specialities of Greece include the dark, sweetish red Mavrodaphne and the Muscat dessert wine of Samos. Naoussa is a strong dry red, Casteli Danielis rather lighter. Robola from the island of Cephalonia is one of the freshest dry whites made in Greece.

Hungarian wines

Hungary’s reputation as a wine producer was made by one wine, the supposed ‘essence of life’, Tokay. Tokay is still made today under the auspices of Hungary’s State Wine system but, rather like petrol, is now available in number of different ‘grades’.

It is made from Furmint grapes grown around the town of Tokaj, in the far northeast of the country. ‘Noble rot’ is encouraged and concentrates the sugar already present in the grapes to a state of great richness. The best grapes are kept separate, crushed and retained as a luscious paste.

Tokai Aszu is the dessert wine, sold in strange half-litre flasks, made in various concentrations of this paste. Each measure of paste is called a puttonyo and the richest version sold is five puttonyos. The State is also rumoured to harbour small quantities of Tokaj Essencia, the ‘essence’ of this unique, rich, spicy wine. Tokaj Szamorodni Dry has no sweetness added and tastes more like sherry than a table wine.

Hungary’s best-known red wine is Bull’s Blood, Egri Bikaver in its native land, a full, aggressive wine with lots of character. While the native Kadarka is her most common red grape, its white counterpart is Olasz Riesling, similar to the Laski Riesling of Yugoslavia and sometimes exported carrying the name of Pecs, a town in the south towards the Yugoslav border.

Her most interesting whites come from the shores of the vast Lake Balaton, and are made from local grape varieties.

Italian wines

It is strange that Italy, a country that in many years produces more wine than any other, is still struggling to establish herself as an important force in the world of top-quality wine. As much commonplace or even disappointing wine is made each year in France as in Italy, but the French at least are confident in their supremacy at the top end of the quality scale.

The Italians, on the other hand are quite sure of their ability to impress the inhabitants of Turin with the best of their Barolos, the inhabitants of Florence with their Chianti Classico Riservas or the mightily priced Brunello di Montalcino, but none of these wines has yet won its place as of right on the top wine lists of the world beyond the Italian frontier.

Wine is as much a part of the Italian landscape as any other agricultural crop, perhaps rather more so as the vine can be cultivated right from the top to the tip of the boot that is drawn by her coastline and frontiers. Even Sicily, which can be fiercely hot in summer, is a prodigious producer of grapes for wine.

In terms of total quantities produced, Sicily and the hot southern tip of the country, Apulia, are major producers of wine in Italy and much of this is shipped north by tanker to add strength and colour either for the blenders of northern mouth and sparkling wines, or those in southern France, or the makers of vermouth and sparkling wines.

These wines are full bodied, ripened up to staggeringly high alcoholic strengths by the heat of the Mediterranean sun.

best of Italian wines

But the best wines of Italy, those which have won national, if not international, repute, come from the Alpine foothills of Piedmont in the north-west, Barolo, Barbaresco and Asti country, and from the less dramatic but more classical hills of Tuscany, the land of Chianti, Brunello di Montalcino and Vino Nobile di Montepulciano.

The Veneto centred on Verona in the north has been responsible for putting Italy on the world wine map with its trio of Soave, Valpolicella and Bardolino, while the varietal wines of the far north-east, Fruili-Venezia-Guilia, are fast making a name for themselves.

Italy is popular with all major wine drinking countries as a source of good-value, dependable cheaper wines and a is major supplier of most northern European countries as well as the United States, where she is by far the most important source of imported wine.

A factor in this great commercial success has been the tightening up of her wine legislation, now based on Denominazione di Origine Controllata (DOC), itself modelled on the French Appellation Contrôlée system. If a wine is described as DOC it must come from the area specified and be made according to the laws for that particular DOC, usually arrived at on the basis of tradition in consultation with the local producers.

This has not always meant that the very best possible wine in a given area has been encouraged, only that which has traditionally been the most popular with the locals.

Perhaps some official recognition that such a problem exists came with the proposal of ‘DOCGs’, Denominazione Controllata e Garantita. This is designed to be a sort of ‘super-DOC’, an order into which only the very best wines will be allowed to enter. Wines so far proposed for membership include Barolo, Barbareso, Brunello di Monatalcino, Vino Nobile di Montepulciano and Chianti Classico.

Barolo has traditionally occupied the throne as king of Italian wines. One would expect the crown to go to a red wine, for it is reds that are imbued with the most character in the cellars of Italian wine makers. Most whites tend to taste too heavy or characterless in this hot climate.

To the average Italian the deep, dark wines of the Barolo region to the south of Turin, with their usual ten-year sentence to cask ageing, seem all that they desire: manly, uncompromisingly chewy, fiercely strong. To non-Italian palates, many of them can seem too short on fruit, too long on wood, so it is important to be aware of this problem.

The Barolo made by someone who puts his wines in wood for only a carefully judged period rather than until he receives an order for his Riserva can be a scented, mysterious, adult wine, but it is wise to check that the wine has had some bottle age.

grape varieties

There are many wines made from the Nebbiolo grape grown in the misty hills of Piedmont. Some wines may simply be called Nebbiolo, and these will in general be rather lighter than most Barolos, as is Barbaresco, which comes from a little further down the valley than Barolo.

Gattinara and Spanna, Ghemme, Sizzano and Carema are all made from the Nebbiolo grape from which they get their intense mulberry colour. They are usually vinified so as to be ready sooner than classic Barolo. Further north, almost on the Swiss border, are the similarly made, though evilly named, Grumello and Inferno.

The other important red wine grape in Piedmont is the rather fruitier and tarter Barbera, more of a picnic wine than a grand dinner wine, though the complexity and diversity of its DOCs belie this, there being carefully delineated Barberas of Asti, Albi and Monferrato.

Dolcetto is another red grape grown commonly in Piedmont, making wines of character but without the depth of flavour of Nebbiolo. There are Dolcettos d’Alba, d’Asti and d’Acqui.

Of the white wines of the region, the sweet fizzy Asti Spumante is by far the best known, though this is rapidly being replaced by the rather less expensive Moscato Spumante. These wines are refrigerated when only halfway through fermentation so as to retain sweetness at the expense of alcohol. Otherwise, there are few well-known whites here, though Gavi is developing a certain following.

Further north and east is the Italian Tyrol, the Alto Adige, which, not surprisingly, has much in common in winemaking terms with the Austrian Tyrol just across the border. The wine industry there is centred on Bolzano or Bolzen. Best-known reds include Santa Maddalena and Kalterersee, but whites made of Riesling and Gewürztraminer are of particular interest to those who normally associate Italy with more ‘hot country’ wines.

The Adige Valley leads south down to Verona, centre of the area just to the east of Lake Garda from which so much Soave, Valpolicella and Bardolino is shipped to thirsty wine drinkers the world over. The best dry white Soave is Soave Classico from the heartland of the original winemaking zone.

Garganega and the ubiquitous Italian white wine grape Trebbiano are responsible for this wine, which can at best display some zesty almondy characteristics. The best of Valpolicellas can similarly give the taster a hint of bitter cherries. Bardolino is similar, but is usually little lighter and tarter. One of these specialities of this Veneto region is Recioto, wine made from grapes that have been allowed to stand to dry up before they are fermented.

Recioto di Soave is a rich, sweet white wine, and Recioto della Valpolicella is its red counterpart. The most commonly exported Recioto is the dry version of the latter, Recioto Amarone della Valpolicella, a heady, slightly bitter red often called simply Amarone. Gambellara is very similar, and close, to Soave.

Made just south of Lake Garda, the sprightly Lugana is one of Italy’s prettier white wines.

The Fruili-Venezia-Guilia region to the northeast of Venice is one that shows great promise and has already produced some fine variedly labelled wines from Merlot, Cabernet, (Italian) Riesling, Tocai, Pinot Grigio and Sauvignon. Some of the best of these ‘varietal’ wines come from the Grave del Friuli region near Udine and the Colli Orientali del Friuli and Colli Goriziano around Gorizia on the Yugoslav border.

Verduzzo is one of the better known whites from this area.

Between this region and the north of Tuscany are the plains, and the great Lambrusco vineyards around Modena. Lambrusco is usually a sweet fizzy red wine that can’t be all bad as it accounts for more than half the total American imports of Italian wine.

To the south and east are the rather more serious, but good value, wines of Emilia-Romagna, the red wines made from Sangiovese, the white wines from Trebbiano.

In the centre of Italy, on the cypress-clad Tuscan hills, is one of the oldest wine districts, Chianti country. Well might the more fastidious producers employ the warning: ‘Beware inferior imitations’, for Chianti can vary from insipid fermented fruit juice to truly great, mature and above all, balanced wine, usually with a characteristically ‘vegetable’ smell.

The law specifies quite carefully what proportion of grapes may be used in Chianti: mainly Sangiovese with up to thirty percent white grapes. There are many different styles of winemaking, however, some of which produce wines with a certain amount of ‘prickle’ designed for early consumption.

Chianti Classico again comes from the heart of the region and all wines so designated have to pass rigorous analysis and tasting tests. They can be spotted by their black cockerel seal. Chianti Putto has a cherub symbol.

Similar, though headier and often longer-lasting red wines made in Tuscany, are the two proposed for DOCG Brunello di Montalcino and Vino Nobile di Montepulciano as well as a Cabernet Sauvignon curiosity, Sassicaia. Whites are now relegated to the name Toscano Bianco and tend to be sold under a brand name.

In the northwest of Chianti country, producers in the Chianti Montalbano area may add in a small proportion of Cabernet grapes to their standard Chianti mix to produce Carmignano, while even further out, the crisp white wine of Montecarlo is made near Lucca. Vernaccia, a heady white grape, is grown in Tuscany, notably at San Gimignano.

Parrina, brand name for an unusual pair of red and white wines, is made near Orbetello on the Mediterranean coast, while Vinsanto, a white dessert wine, is a Tuscan speciality.

Dr Lungarotti’s Rubesco Torgiano is one of central Italy’s best made red wines and comes from Umbria.

southern wine regions

Just to the south of Tuscany is a region known particularly for its white wines, of all degrees of sweetness, Orvieto, while over on the Adriatic coast by Ancona is the much crisper Verdicchio in its special amphora-shaped bottle. Est! Est!! Est!!! Is made near Orvieto, but is seen less and less, other than in wine books.

Italy’s other famous white wine, Frascati, is made in the hills to the south of Rome, traditionally by fermenting the wine on the skins, which accounts for its strangely grapy flavour. Marino is nearby and similar.

Way down south of Naples there are more wines whose names are better known their taste: Lacrima Christi, Capri and Gran Caruso di Ravello. This is the start of the country where enormous quantities of wine are produced, but there are very few internationally known names, usually quite rightly.

The strong red wine Aglianico del Vulture must get points on the basis of its name alone, but otherwise there is little to capture the imagination until the mainland is left behind.

Sicily’s best-known wine today is probably Corvo di Salaparuta, both red and white versions being daringly high in alcohol. Sardinia is the home of many a DOC, characteristically and traditionally fairly sweet. The producers and shippers Sella & Mosca, however, have pioneered a wine industry more in tune with the demands of today’s wine drinker for crisp, dry white wines and well-balanced, firm red wines.

wines of Luxemburg

Luxembourg’s small wine industry is centred on the town of Remich, just a few miles over the border from the Saar tributary of the Moselle, and indeed there is a similarity between the wines produced in these two wine areas.

Luxembourg wine is white, light and usually characterised by a high degree of acidity. Lack of body makes these wines ideal for slimmers and diabetics, and they should usually be drunk as young as possible. The sometimes eye-wateringly tart Elbing is cultivated widely, and Perlewein, slightly sparkling, is a local speciality

portuguese wines

The extraordinary thing about Portugal is how underappreciated her best wines are.

It is sad to think that most non-Portuguese know little of any Portuguese wine other than port and that well-known fizzy pink one.

As any visitor to Portugal knows, the country has much more to offer the world’s wine drinkers than Mateus rosé, although the Portuguese themselves are some of the world’s most enthusiastic wine drinkers. With the exception of the Vinho Verde wines of the north, which are specifically designed to be drunk young, Portugal’s madura or mature wines are remarkable for the concentration of their flavour.

Like their Spanish counterparts, Portuguese winemakers are keen on leaving their wines in wood for some time, but the wines also seem to receive a fair time in bottle too.

wine regions

Portugal has seven regions authorised by government and wine from these regions has an official paper seal on the neck of the bottle. Her best-established red wine region is Dão, pronounced almost ‘dow’, to the south of the Douro valley of port fame. The wines are rich with lots of alcohol. They are usually given several years in wood and deserve few more in bottle. As in Rioja, the whites can seem too heavy or flat. Local grapes are used here, with Touriga being the prominent red wine grape.

North of the Douro, in the Minho, Vinho Verde is made. Light and high in acidity, these wines often have a slight ‘prickle’ of carbon dioxide. The ‘Verde’ refers not to their colour but to the ripeness, or rather the lack of it, of the grapes when they are picked.

More red Vinho Verde than white is made, but most of the red is consumed locally. The wines are trained high on trellises to keep acidity levels high and this tartness really does characterise a typical Vinho Verde. Some firms sweeten up their wines for export. Mateus, the wine that is neither red nor white, still sparkling, dry nor sweet, is made in this northern region.

Other wine regions which have earned themselves reputations in the past are Bucelas dry whites, Carcavelos sweet whites, and Colares reds made in the phylloxera-free sandy vineyards now swamped by Lisbon suburbs.

Good table wines of the future are expected to come from the Douro, Estremadura on the coast north of Lisbon, Bairrada and Lafoes.

Rumanian and Bulgarian wines

Rumania is another Eastern European wine producer with interesting potential, particularly for whites. Here the vineyards are still in private hands and a wide variety of grapes is grown, including Italian Riesling, Furmint, Muscat, Pinot Gris and Sauvignon as well as Kadarka and classic French red grape varieties.

Cotnari is Rumania’s answer to Hungary’s Tokay, but the wines to look out for are the rapidly improving table wines.

Bulgaria has also been experimenting, with marked success, with classic European grape varieties in its vineyards, which are almost as extensive as those of Hungary, but only two-thirds those of Rumania.

Some remarkable Cabernets and Chardonnays have been produced by the state-run Vinprom organisation. In addition to these are many Balkan grape varieties, such as Hungary’s red Kadarka, its own rich red Mavrud, the more ordinary Pamid and the space-age-sounding Melnik.

Misket is Bulgaria’s version of Muscat, the sweet white grapiest of grapes, and Hemus is similar.

After years of Muslim rule, Bulgaria is relative new-comer as a wine producer, but is already one of the world’s biggest wine exporters, chiefly to Germany and Russia.

spanish wines

Spain’s major fine wine-producing region is Rioja, wild hilly country in the north of Spain. It is significant that when phylloxera hit the vineyards of Bordeaux, many winemakers made their way south across the Pyrenees to the Rioja region, where their influence can still be seen from just a glance into any bodega, piled high with Bordeaux-style barriques, oak casks. These casks play a major role in determining rioja’s unique warm vanilla flavour, and it is wood that imparts this.

Few of the main wine producers, or bodegas, own a large vineyard holding. Most of the Rioja wines are tended by peasant farmers, who sell their crop to bigger concerns that actually make the wine. This means that a wide variety of different grapes can go into each blend, whose final taste is governed by the amount of time it spends in these American oak casks.

There was a time when too much rioja spent too long in cask, but producers are realising the value of allowing the wine to mature in the bottle as well as in wood.

Rioja’s best wines are the more elegant reds, robust enough to withstand being opened hours, sometimes days, before being drunk, yet soft enough to appeal to the most inexperienced wine-drinker. Traditionally, white rioja was made just like red rioja, which often meant it was too old and tired by the time it was eventually bottled.

Today there are still a few very good wines made in this way, Marques de Murrieta white for instance can taste not unlike a good white burgundy, but increasing number of bodegas are experimenting with modern white wine vinification methods to produce fresh, crisp whites for early consumption.

This pattern is reflected elsewhere in Spain, where reds still appeal more to non-Spaniards than the often stale whites and heavyweight rosados (rosés).

Spanish red wines

Just as there is variation in the style of white riojas now being produced, there have always been a number of different styles of reds. Some bodegas make it easy for the consumer by putting their richer, burgundy-style wines into sloping-shouldered bottles, while their lighter, drier claretes go into claret bottles.

Another exciting area for good-quality Spanish wine is Penedes, in Catalonia, to the west of Barcelona. Here there are a number of firms making wines for export, and this is also the centre of Spain’s enormous sparkling wine industry, but Torres of Vilafranca del Penedes must be regarded as the pioneer.

In a region where most grapes are local varieties destined for the large méthode champenoise sparkling winemakers such as Codorniu and Freixenet, Miguel Torres has experimented with most of Europe’s classic grape varieties, often with excellent results. On his return from the oenological school at Montpellier he planted Pinot Noir, Cabernet Sauvignon, Gewürztraminer and many more. Vina Sol is the Torres standard white, while Coronas and Tres Torres are two of their reds.

Other still wine producers of Penedes include Masia Bach, Freixedas, René Barbier and Marques de Monistrol. There is a host of sparkling wine producers, Vilafranca being Spain’s Rheims and Epernay rolled into one, who use the same methods as in Champagne to make their wines. The main difference is that instead of the classic grape varieties, they use a mixture of local white Spanish grapes.

wine regions

Just to the north of the rioja region is Navarre, whose wines can be very similar to rioja, though are usually a little coarser. Castillo de Tiebas is a name to remember for those who can take a lot of alcohol in their wine.

Another small region producing wines of almost indecent strength, though sometimes with enough character to warrant it, is Priorato in the hinterland of Tarragona, itself a well-known name for strong, rather sweet red wine in the past.

To the south and west of this, most wine produced is very heavyweight red that may be a useful addition to blends for branded wine, but is often not fine enough to be savoured on its own merits. Jumilla, Yecla, Valdepenas, La Mancha, Mentrida, Utiel Requena, Manchuela, Cheste, Almansa and Alicante would all like to prove that they have sufficient attributes to make them worthy of note to wine drinkers the world over and some big companies are investing large sums in new wineries in the hot central plains of Spain.

They will doubtless do their best to bring modern winemaking methods to these regions and may well be producing huge quantities of inexpensive, sound, full-bodied wine before long.

Another promising area is Leon in the northwest, where the climate is tempered by the Atlantic, a factor which also plays a part in the type of wine produced in Ribeiro and Valdeorras just to the north of the Portuguese border. This is an example of how little vines care for national frontiers, for the wines made here are like nothing more than wines of Vinho Verde country just across the border.

A curiosity from Spain also comes from the northwest. Vega Sicilia has developed such a following that its sales are rationed. This very concentrated red was kept for all of ten years in wood, and still manages to have enough fruit to stand up to this Barolo-like treatment. But inflation at last caught up with its maker, Don Jesus Anadon, and he has developed a five-year-old version too.

Swiss wines

From the former USSR to Switzerland, there could hardly be more of a contrast, except that both of them are enthusiastic importers of wine in bulk. Wine made from Switzerland’s precipitous vineyards is necessarily expensive and there is much blending of imported cheaper wine.

Most Swiss wine is white, light and dry, particularly in the best-known regions around Lake Geneva (Vaud) and in the upper Rhône valley (Valais). Chasselas, a grape consigned to the fruit basket elsewhere, is popular here for Dorin in the Vaud and Fendant in the Valais. Johannisberg has slightly more flavour and is made from Sylvaner grown in the Valais.

The most popular red is Dôle, a light red not unlike Beaujolais, from the Valais, although the Swiss can also draw on the vineyards of the Ticino in the south, whose wines of course have Italian characteristics, with Merlot making round reds, the best of which are called Viti.

North American wines

When you have a large country inhabited by increasingly sophisticated and enthusiastic wine drinkers, much of it being ideally suited to the cultivation of the vine, then it is not surprising that it is producing some of the world’s finest wine.

What is perhaps unusual is that it has taken the United States so long to develop its wine industry. For this delay Prohibition must take the blame, and it took several decades even after its repeal for Americans to look for an alcoholic drink with a less vicious kick than their highballs and cocktails.

The early seventies saw American interest in wine broaden from high-alcohol dessert wines and wines from large Italian community to include all the world’s finest table wines. This was accompanied by a dramatic increase in the number of intelligent enthusiasts anxious to show that North America’s most promising wine region, California, could make wines to rank with the best in the world.

Californian wine

Wine has been made on the West Coast since the Jesuits brought the vine along their Mission Trail. Even during Prohibition, some California wineries survived by making communion wine.

California’s wine industry has grown steadily in the amount of wine produced, the volume made up largely by the enormous wineries of the hot Central Valley responsible for California’s basic jug wines. But the excitement has been in the rapid increase in the number of smaller top-quality wineries, often established by ‘dropouts’ from other professions.

The big wineries are still extremely important. Theirs is the territory in which ‘Chablis’ is American for white wine just as ‘Burgundy’ is for red. Creditably sound wines are made at this bottom level of quality, much of it sold in large flagons, hence the ‘jug wine’. The biggest of these big wineries is E & J Gallo, a family-run company that produces more wine than any other winery in the world at their Modesto complex, which even includes a glass furnace in which their own bottles are made.

But even Gallo are trying to cash in on the varietal act. Generics such as Chablis and burgundy or sauterne are now seen by the American public as less desirable than varietals, wines named after the main grape variety in the wine.

This craze for varietal labelling has led to some interesting examples of wines made from a single grape variety, such as French Colombard for instance, about which most European wine drinkers have never he