Cafes & Wineries

My colleague Jim Gordon who currently edits Wines & Vines magazine just pointed me to an article on their web site that made my jaw hit the table.

Reporting from the recent meeting of the American Society for Wine Economists, writer Peter Mitham describes a presentation by researcher Robin Goldstein, who seems to have performed a sting operation on the Wine Spectator Restaurant Awards and exposed them as a total farce, as part of his ongoing investigations on the perceptions of value and quality in wine.

In summary:

1. Researcher invents fake restaurant in Italy.
2. Researcher builds web site for fake restaurant.
3. Researcher constructs wine list of the lowest scoring Italian wines from Wine Spectator in the last decade.
4. Researcher enters Wine Spectator Restaurant Awards.
5. Fake restaurant wins Wine Spectator Award of Excellence.

I haven’t laughed so hard at a piece of wine news in years. It’s truly unbelievable.

Read the article at Wines & Vines, and then go read the the researcher’s own blog post on the subject, which includes text from the Spectator’s reviews of the wines on his list. It’s hysterical.

If this is true, it completely destroys any shred of credibility that these awards might have.

Original post by Alfonso Cevola

The birth of a wine region is a fascinating thing to watch, and I’m sure an even more fascinating process to be a part of. Much of the wine that we drink comes from regions that have been established anywhere from decades to centuries ago, but the quest for great wine and great places to grow it (not to mention the changing whims of the global climate) means that there are always new frontiers when it comes to wine growing.

All new wine regions begin the same — with a pioneering spirit and a hell of a lot of determination. Someone decides that a certain place is the right spot to grow wine grapes, and they stake a lot of sweat and money on whatever knowledge they’ve got backing up that decision, whether it be a hunch, or a GIS enabled geologic survey.

Eventually, the initial prospector may be joined by others, especially if he or she manages to survive and produce a product that doesn’t suck.

For a time, these early farmers and winemakers operate out of sheer passion and determination. They need no more organization than their own collegiality or happenstance might offer. It is enough that they are growing and making wine in the place they dream of doing so.

But with enough success, and enough producers, questions of legitimacy and marketability inevitably arise. That is to say, eventually, it seems to make sense to make the wine region “official” and to use its name as a way of distinguishing the wine grown in that region, from wine grown elsewhere. At the very least, it makes sense to agree on a name for this place that everyone can use. At the most, it may make sense to establish rules and regulations that determine the quality and nature of the wine made in the region.

But when exactly does it make sense to do this? In the case of new regions emerging within or alongside existing ones, there are legislative answers to this question already.

But when the region is entirely new, this question gets very interesting. The winemakers of Guadalupe Valley and the Mexican government are currently wrestling with the issues surrounding this question at this very moment.

The Government of the State of Baja has suggested that the fledgling wine region adopt regional appellations and a set of regulations along the lines of the Denomination of Origin laws in Spain, Italy, or France.

It’s easy to see how the region could benefit from such laws. They add credibility to any wines that carry the designation on the label, and the wines can be marketed to the world under specific regional names, with guarantees of quality. In short, such regulations could help increase prices and demand for Guadalupe Valley wines.

On the other hand, say many of the vintners, no one has any idea what the boundaries of the region should be, what the wine regulations ought to require or forbid, or how to measure the quality of this new region’s wines.

And frankly, they have a point. We wine lovers are so used to the codified traditions of our global wine regions. We know that Brunello is required to be 100% Sangiovese, and that Burgundy must be 100% Pinot Noir, but at some point people had to decide that this was so. Of course, those decision makers had many decades (or more) of winemaking traditions to back up their regulations.

Who is going to decide what the permitted grape varieties are in the Guadalupe Valley? And more importantly how on earth could someone decide that so early in the region’s evolution as a wine locality? And what is the definition of quality in a region where only in the last couple of years have global critics even suggested that there might be high quality grapes being grown there? These are tough questions, and scary ones to contemplate a bureaucrat or some other ministry official forcing on a burgeoning wine region.

For now it may be best to simply make the geographic region more official, and wait for the perspective of some history to guide more definite judgments about what will make for great Mexican wine.

Read the full story.

Original post by Alfonso Cevola

For the last 18 or so hours, and for some people it may still be so, Vinography has been deader than a doornail, thanks to a botched network upgrade by my hosting provider. I’m sorry for the inconvenience, and I thank you for your patience. This is only the third or fourth time Vinography has gone down in about 5 years, so while it’s incredibly annoying, I’m trying to keep it in perspective.

The irony of this downtime is that just two days ago I upgraded my Movable Type installation to the new release which dramatically improved the performance of the site for you, my readers. In particular, I know many of you have suffered through waits of 30 seconds to sometimes 3 or 4 minutes when posting comments to the site. This performance problem has now been resolved, and comments post in just a few seconds now, which is a huge relief to me and hopefully to you as well.

Thanks for your continued readership. I now return you to regularly scheduled programming.

Original post by Alfonso Cevola

If I ever wanted to make a lot of money in the wine industry, I know just what I’d do. It wouldn’t be starting a vineyard, or publishing a book, or making my own wine, or marketing someone else’s. No if I wanted to make a pile of money, I’d simply organize a big wine competition.

Such competitions and their gold medals are good for one thing and one thing only: making a pile of money for the people who organize them. I don’t believe the do a bit of good for the wine industry as a whole, no matter how excited all those gold-medal-winning wineries are.

Now I’m a die-hard capitalist at heart. The folks that run these wine competitions are doing their best to get along in the world just like everyone else. I’ve got nothing against them personally. But I see the endless parade (more and more are started every year) of wine competitions as no better than those talent scouting scams you see in the paper, where overly hopeful parents of young actresses and models-to-be get sucked into paying “talent fees” for the chance to have their offspring “considered” for representation by a talent agent that may not even exist, let alone have the connections needed to turn someone into a star.

In other words: one big racket. Here’s an excerpt from one such competition’s literature:

“NEW Competition! Look at the Super Star Pro Wine Buyers Lined Up to Judge Your Greatest Wines! Get your wines tasted by top U.S. Professional Wine Buyers from Andronico’s Market, Dean and Deluca, IL Forniao Restaurant Group, Playboy Mansion West.

$75 per entry Early Bird until August 16. SO DON’T WAIT. Enter Now.

Moving wine and finding new retail outlets is getting harder and harder…

Why spend thousands of dollars traveling and hours beating your head against the wall trying to get face time with the real decision makers?

We’ve done the work for you to get your wines in front of the right people. What does this mean for you? Well, in addition to cutting down on your work and expense, the results will be published and distributed TO THE TRADE….

Winners will be awarded gold, silver and bronze — and the Guide will provide price points, contact information and production information so that wine buyers throughout the U.S. (and abroad) can use it as their “bible” to find wines they KNOW the wine-buying public will love.”

I don’t know about you, but that sort of makes my skin crawl. I don’t see this as much different than marketing investment schemes to the elderly. The two prey on the same insecurities about success among those who desperately want to be successful. They’re not illegal, but they are morally dubious.

A huge number of wineries in the United States don’t get the 90+ point scores from the critics that immediately bring their wines to the attention of the wine buying public. Nor are they sufficiently popular that people buy their wines no matter what the critics say.

This group of wineries needs to sell their wines. They need wine buyers at restaurants, hotels, retailers, and bars to think that their products are worth selling. They’re not desperate — any more desperate than the maker of a product who needs to sell it to survive — but they do know that they have not gotten accolades from the people who really count, so selling out their wine is going to take a combination of hard work and luck.

Where there is a need in the marketplace, products and services spontaneously arise to fill it. Recognizing the need for hundreds, if not thousands of wineries to distinguish themselves from the pack somehow, the commercial wine competition arose.

The formula is simple. Wineries looking for publicity pay a fee for each wine that they want to enter into the competition. Their wines are judged in dozens and dozens of different categories (generally by hardworking folks who are trying to do a good job, though not always) to maximize the numbers of medals that can be handed out like so much candy to the nervous wineries looking for as much validation as those anxious parents who want their children to be stars.

Maybe after paying the $750 to enter ten bottles of wine, a winery walks away with a Gold, two Silvers, and one Bronze medal. They get to hang them around the necks of their bottles in the tasting room. They get to pay their PR lackeys to send out press releases about the awards, and, of course, they now get to mention the fact that their wine won a gold every single time they pour a glass for anyone, anywhere.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with this, despite its insipidity. There’s nothing really wrong with the folks who organize these wine competitions making hundreds of thousands of dollars from the event ($500 x 800 wineries = take it to the bank).

But there is something vaguely evil about the whole scenario. It’s like a whole little economy that has sprung up to feed on insecurity, mediocrity, and hope.

And with so many wine competitions out there, from state fairs to so-and-so’s international wine competition, the thousands of gold medals handed out have become completely meaningless. I’ve never had a friend recommend a wine to me based on the fact that it has won a gold medal. I’ve never had a sommelier in a restaurant or bar tell me that the wine they were recommending was a gold medal winning wine. I’ve certainly never seen it listed on a wine list. I think I might have seen (but only once or twice) a wine store or supermarket shelf talker mention a medal.

The only people I ever hear talking about these damn medals from are the wineries themselves and their marketing agencies, both of whom (rather pitifully I think) try to wring every tiny little bit of mileage out of their award that they can. It’s like the folks who work in tasting rooms don’t have anything interesting to say about the wines, but if they can talk about medals they might just sell a bottle or two.

I’m sure someone will come along here and slap me down and tell me that gold medal wines sell better in their tasting room and that they really have gotten a return on their investment of however many hundreds of dollars they spent on this wine competition or that state fair entry.

But that doesn’t mean that the wine industry wouldn’t be a hell of a lot better off if all these wine competitions just went away, and people spent their money and time making better wine, and telling people interesting stories about it. Which is what most everyone remembers anyway.

Original post by Alfonso Cevola

It’s no surprise that with the Olympics going on, all manner of news media have turned their eye on China. The wine media have taken this opportunity to explore and explicate the rapidly growing interest in wine that seems to have arisen in China in the last few years. Much of this coverage is quite superficial, but increasingly journalists are actually exploring China’s wines, wine regions, and wine culture.

Two recent articles are worth reading for their thoughtful commentary on China’s burgeoning wine culture.

The first, from the ever articulate Mike Steinberger at Slate, draws on his experience living in Hong Kong for several years and paints a nuanced view of just what the obsession with wine among China’s nouveau riche may mean for the world.

The second article, which appeared in the online version of Men’s Vogue, explores the efforts to produce local wines in China. My own experiences corroborate the findings of of this article. Namely that most of the supposed top wines produced in China have a long way to go. However, it’s only a matter of time before someone cracks the code (or simply spends enough effort and money) to produce excellent wine there.

Both articles are highly recommended reading for anyone who is interested in the future of the global wine industry. Like in so many aspects of the global economy, China’s effect on the wine industry will be huge.

Original post by Alfonso Cevola

Those of you who have been hanging around these parts for some time know that on occasion I get together with my incredibly talented friend Chef David Kinch of Manresa Restaurant in Los Gatos, and we collaborate on a meal together. He cooks and I pick a bunch of wines that I think people might enjoy drinking while they eat what I maintain is the best cuisine in all of Northern California.

It’s been a while since we’ve done one of these dinners, but I’m pleased to announce a very unique event that we’re simply calling The Sake Dinner.

The idea is simple. I choose some of the best sakes in the world, and based on some discussion and tasting with me, Chef Kinch cooks an unbelievable meal designed to complement them.

I’ve always loved the Japanese influence in David’s cooking, and given that he recently spent some exploring Japan again, I can’t wait to see what he comes up with for this feast. I’m also especially excited at the caliber of sakes that we’re planning on pouring, which are going to be truly phenomenal.

This dinner is not being marketed or advertised anywhere public except for the Manresa mailing list and here on Vinography. So you’ve got a shot at reservations if you want them.

The nuts and bolts of the dinner: a special 8-course feast that will likely feature some heavenly raw fish in ways that only Chef Kinch can do it, coupled with 8 or more phenomenally good and interesting sakes from among my favorites in the entire world.

Cost per person is $325, exclusive of tax and gratuity. Seating begins at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, September 10, and reservations are available by phone at 408.354.4330.

As with every dinner I do at Manresa, I will be on hand to tell the stories of these sakes to those that are interested and make sure your glasses are full. Just eight weeks ago I presented a well received sake seminar at the Aspen Food and Wine Classic, so my sake jokes are all well polished (to the daiginjo level).

Wait for it….

OK. I promise: no jokes at this dinner. Just serious sakes, and unbelievably good food.

I hope to see you there.

Manresa and Vinography present: The Sake Dinner
Wednesday, September 10th, 2008
Seating begins at 6:30 PM
Manresa Restaurant
320 Village Lane (just off North Santa Cruz Avenue)
Los Gatos, CA 95030
408-354-4330

$325 per person gets you an eight course meal with sake pairings. You pay tax and gratuity. Reservations are required, and this event will most certainly sell out.

Original post by Alfonso Cevola

“Oh my God,” Terry Theise says, walking over to me, the only guy in the room with a laptop, with a twinkle in his eye. “You’re not going to actually write down what I say, are you? Please promise me one thing, that you won’t keep track of how many F-Bombs I drop.”

And that is how I first met the guy whose writing and wines I have admired for several years, ever since I was first introduced to his portfolio and his writings by distributor Hiram Simon, who runs the well regarded WineWise & The Vienna Wine Company in Oakland.

Terry Theise, despite how his first words to me might suggest otherwise, is in my estimation one of the most articulate people about wine on the planet. And he doesn’t even write about wine for a living. He spends most of his time finding fantastic German and Austrian wines (as well as small Champagne producers) and making them available to wine lovers in the U.S. via his annual catalogs, which are absolutely some of the best reading on wine I do every year.

Theise’s catalogs are to standard wine catalogs as Rolling Stone Magazine is to an inventory list of CDs at your local music store. They’re hilarious, thought provoking, sometimes moving, and entertaining reading, in addition to being sources of some of the best wines on the planet.

Last week I had the opportunity to sit in on a seminar Theise was running in San Francisco with a few top Riesling producers from Germany and Austria, and was delighted to learn that Theise is as articulate, entertaining (and mischievous) as he comes across in his catalogs. The guy is simply a poet when it comes to wine.

So I’ll stop praising him now, and simply do what he was afraid I might do: transcribe some of what he said, at least as best I could, while typing furiously in the back of the room with a mouthful of Riesling.

“The working title of this seminar is ‘A Meditation on the Importance of Terroir’. Which is to say that we’re only going to be talking about the meaning of terroir. Really. Under no circumstances will this be a demonstration or a proof of terroir. I will never do that sort of tasting again.”

He pauses and looks at the audience. Waiting.

Finally someone takes the bait. “Why won’t you do that sort of thing again?”

“It’s been proven. Get over it.”

“It’s essentially been proven, and continues to be proven vintage after vintage after vintage. Let me tell you a little story to explain where I’m coming from and then we can move on. When I got into wine, I was studying in Germany at the time and wine wasn’t uncool yet there. I got into exploring the wine regions that were close to me, and started learning both from experience and from the way people thought about wine there, that the flavors in Riesling came from the soils that the vines grew in. That was simply part of my understanding of how wine worked.”

“It came as a great shock to me when I first learned that some people believed to the contrary.”

“Indeed, terroir has become something you need to fight for. And this fight has frankly become tiring. There are two types of people out there. There are those who understand that the soil makes the wine, and then there are those who are idiots. So let’s move on.”

“Here’s my definition of terroir. Terroir for the purposes of this and other discussions is: a cause and effect relationship between soil components and wine flavors for which no other explanation seems possible. That’s it.”

“Obviously there are things that act upon terroir - geologic structure, drainage, the soils warming properties, the pH of the soil, et cetera. Weather acts upon terroir, and of course humans act upon terroir.”

“Saying weather acts upon terroir is like saying some years Elvis was skinny, some years Elvis was fat. Elvis was still Elvis. The components are there and they are creating the flavors, modified by everything that happens to the grapes in that vintage, including our own actions. But the components are there.”

“Of course there’s no way of proving that scientifically. We haven’t figured out how yet. But it’s true. Truth to me means that all ravens are black until you see a white raven. If I see evidence that contradicts my hypothesis I will change my opinion. I’m still waiting for a white raven.”

“When all other variables are removed, we see that one type of soil creates this flavor, and other soils create that flavor. And Riesling is perfect for this, of course, because the variables involved in the winemaking are so few.”

“We should probably talk a bit about minerality for a minute. Terroir is NOT flavors of minerality in wine. Terroir can produce many flavors in wine: certain fruit flavors, floral nuances, and yes, sometimes the flavors that many people describe as minerality.”

“When we speak about minerality, though, we are not actually speaking about minerality. What seems to us tasters as flavors or aromas of wet stones, crushed rocks, or minerals are almost certainly NOT that. But that sense of minerality arises for lots of tasters nonetheless. We call it minerality because that metaphor is useful, but let’s get one thing straight: we’re not talking about the literal translation of minerals from the soil, through the roots, into the grapes, and manifested as flavors of THAT mineral in the final wine. In the fullness of time, such a direct correlation may be proven. But we will have to wait and see.”

“So why do we need to talk about terroir at all? Sometimes, I don’t think we do. I certainly get tired of it. It is not the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Here’s what I think. Terroir is simply a portal through which we can pass and experience a world of humane, civilized, and reasonable values. Think about that for a while. Life is better because of terroir.”

“I like to say that the text of what the wines say is in the ground. The grower determines the font. Or maybe the flavor is the musical notes, and the cellar master is the conductor. The score is written before the conductor gets it. The ground writes it, and the conductor interprets it. I once asked a winemaker I respect what the single most important bit of knowledge he had as a winemaker, and he told me, ‘to know when to do nothing.’”

“Winemaking is the preservation of flavor that is already there. I like to say that Grand Cru vineyards are the earth’s erogenous zones. They are special places that tingle when sunlight hits them.”

Amen, Terry. I only wish I got to stay to hear the end of the seminar and finish tasting all the wines.

Original post by Alfonso Cevola

No matter how bad you think you have it, there are other folks who have it worse than you. We American wine lovers like to bitch about what a royal pain it is to buy wine from out of state wineries and from internet merchants. In truth, it is a broken and corrupt system — a perversion of the free market that enriches protectionist state governments and their wholesale lobbyists.

But it’s not as broken as France.

Yes, this is another rant against the idiocy of the French government and their utterly astonishing tendency to ruin their own wine industry, one of the great contributions their culture has made to the world.

The French really seemed to be making progress for a while there. The overhaul of the AOC system that they passed earlier in the year was most definitely a step in the right direction.

But last week, a piece of legislation leaked to the press that proves that either:

1. The passing of the AOC reforms was just a brief bout of sanity from an otherwise completely out-of-touch parliament
2. The legislative branch of the French Government is in the pocket of anti-alcohol lobbyists
3. When it comes to understanding the Internet, Parliament is dumber than a bag of hammers
4. All of the above

The proposed legislation places alcohol in the same category as pornography when it comes to regulation on the Internet. This means that wine cannot be sold on the Internet (which is currently the case), and sites dealing with the promotion or marketing of wine for sale by anyone other than wineries themselves must be approved by the government, and can only be accessible during certain hours of the day.

I hardly know what to say in response to this.

I’m not sure if this is dumber than their last demonstration of their legislative incompetence when they passed a law requiring all articles about wine to carry the same health warnings as the bottles themselves. Regardless it is certainly more dangerous — dangerous to the health of an industry that is struggling in the face of too many challenges to have its own parliament hamstring the ability for the wine industry to promote itself to the French people.

France needs another revolution. First thing we do, let’s kill all the lobbyists.

Original post by Alfonso Cevola

As an advocate for wine, I try to help people enjoy wine more (or for the first time) in whatever small way I can. I recommend what I think are interesting wines that range in price from $10 to several hundred, and I’m always consciously careful about explaining aspects of winemaking or the wine business to my readers whenever they seem relevant or necessary.

At the same time, however, I strive desperately not to dumb down wine. It is a complex beast in some ways, and part of its beauty is in its complexity. This desire to avoid oversimplifying wine can be a tricky balancing act. On the one hand, wine drinkers shouldn’t have to deal with complexity when they’re just trying to enjoy themselves. On the other hand, wine drinkers might appreciate their wine even more if they understood some of its complexity, and in some ways it’s a shame to watch someone consume a glass of wine in complete ignorance of its qualities, no matter how much they are enjoying themselves.

It’s quite easy for such thinking to drive one into snobbery or into its opposite, both of which were perfectly caricatured in the main characters of the movie Sideways — Miles who wouldn’t drinking any fucking Merlot, and Jack who thought everything was pretty good as long as it got him drunk. I’ve certainly seen my share of real world examples of both — people who suggest with some degree of seriousness that American consumers who can’t tell anything about a French wine by reading the label just shouldn’t be allowed to buy any of it, and people who go to big public wine tastings with the singular goal of drinking as much wine as possible in the shortest possible period of time.

Ultimately, however, I think the wine world is still a bit too intimidating for its own good. The complexities of the wine world keep some people from buying and enjoying wine that really need to be brought into the fold.

Which is why I am glad to see even nascent efforts such as the newly proposed Riesling Taste Scale. The first major initiative of a newly formed organization with the lofty title of International Riesling Foundation, the Riesling Taste Scale sets out a standard classification of Riesling primarily around its level of sweetness.

This scale addresses a common and somewhat annoying problem that can plague even experienced wine lovers: many times it is very difficult to determine just how sweet the Riesling is that you’re buying. This is especially true for anyone who has tried to buy German Riesling, even with a basic understanding of the ripeness classifications like Spatlese and Auslese which while they often correspond to the sweetness of the wine, actually measure the sugar level of the grapes before they were turned into wine, and technically have no relationship to the sugar level of the final wine (which is a factor of how the fermentation was carried out, and when it was stopped).

There are those who will decry this proposed scale as yet another attempt to dumb down wine so that American consumers don’t have to think much before they buy. But I believe that to be a short-sighted and ultimately elitist reaction to the issue. There are several precedents of such systems working quite well in the world, perhaps most notably the puttonyos classification of the Hungarian sweet wine Tokaji Azsu which clearly represents the level of residual sugar in the final wine with a simple number from 3 to 6. An example of a perhaps slightly less successful system (because people don’t fully understand it) might be the SMV system used for classifying sake.

It’s pretty tough to imagine a classification system for Riesling developed in America taking hold throughout the world, considering that most of the Riesling produced in America isn’t that great, and the annual production of the United States is but a tiny drop compared to the volume produced elsewhere in the world. But Riesling is one of the fastest growing varieties of wine consumed in America, so perhaps there will be some momentum around the idea.

In any case, I applaud the idea. It’s about helping people make buying choices that are more likely to result in them enjoying a nice bottle of wine and going back for more — something that everyone in the wine world wants to see.

Read the full story.

Original post by Alfonso Cevola

Growing up in America cripples us wine lovers from the very start. Sure, we are born into the land of boundless opportunity, where the dreams and hard work of a vineyard worker can result in the ownership of a winery twenty years later. But unless our parents provide us with a very particular upbringing, we grow up thinking that wine isn’t wine unless it has the name of the grape on the front of the label.

America and its wine lovers have a varietal bias.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with an attraction to wines made from a single grape variety. Just ask any Burgundy, Brunello, or Barolo nut whether it’s possible to make profound wine from just a single type of grape and you’ll get yourself an earful (and if you’re lucky, a glass-full). The only problem with a primary orientation to wines made from a single grape variety is that, well, they’re boring.

OK, shoot me now.

Or hear me out a bit. Because I only mostly meant that last scandalous remark.

For every example of one of the world’s top wines made from a single grape variety, I can find you examples of three or four others that are made from blends of different grapes. Get outside the world’s finest wines and the numbers swing even more heavily towards wines made from three, four, or five, or fourteen different grape varieties.

Blended wines are simply the way that most winemaking has taken place for most of the modern history of our obsession with the fruit of the vine.

Back in the day, most vineyards were planted with a mix of different kinds of grapes which were all harvested together, crushed together, and fermented together. Such practices are so rare these days that we have to have a special name to describe such winemaking: a field blend. But if you were to jump back in time about 100 years and asked a winegrower (that happened to speak English) what he had planted in the vineyard, they’d likely tell you something like “mixed blacks” which meant a whole lot of different dark skinned grapes, many of which the gentleman might not be able to specifically identify.

Go back a few centuries farther in history and most winemaking converges towards a relatively simple formula — grow some grapes, squash them, and ferment them. The selection of particular varieties for flavor was less important and common than the selection of grapes that would simply grow wherever it was that you wanted to set up your farm.

I mention this history simply to establish a precedent, but my ode to blended wines has little to do with a yearning for traditional winemaking practices. My proselytizing of blended wines has much more to do with pleasure than precedent.

Setting aside for the moment that many of the best wines I’ve had in my life have been blends, let me evangelize based on my current experiences as a wine critic in today’s market. Simply put, the majority of the most interesting wines I have tasted in the last year or two have been multiple variety blends. Yet such wines make up only a small portion of the wine made in America, and an even smaller portion of the wines purchased by most American wine lovers.

Just to be clear, when I’m talking about a blended wine, I’m not talking about adding 4% Petite Verdot to your Cabernet Sauvignon to give it a little more depth. I’m talking about American wines that are made up of enough grape varieties that they can’t legally be labeled with a single variety, and wines from around the world that have funny names that we Americans don’t understand or can’t pronounce.

I promise to go light on the clichéd metaphors here, but there’s just something magical about a blended wine that most single varietal wines can’t touch. Call it the harmonic effect. I like a fantastic Gregorian chant as much as the next guy, but I tell you what — it almost never gives me the shivers like a six part boys choir.

The most amazing wine experiences in my life all have one thing in common: the incredible complexity of the wine — a swirling myriad of primary and secondary flavors and aromas with layers and dimensions that seem to defy the properties of a simple liquid put in the mouth. These layers and multiple notes are, of course, one of the chief reasons to age good wine, to let time transform the wine into something much more complex.

Blended wines, especially those that are made well, come pre-layered with multiple flavors and complexity. They can achieve balance and harmony in ways that single varietal wines sometimes cannot, chained as they are to the flavors of a single grape.

And if you need just one more reason that you ought to be buying more blends, here’s the final one: they’re often cheaper than wines with big name grapes on the label, at least where American wines are concerned. There are a few notable exceptions. Anything from Napa that is labeled “Proprietary Red” is bound to set you back several hundred bucks. But there are a lot of Rhone Blends, Bordeaux Blends, Red Table Wines, and wines with their own unique, characterful names that just won’t set you back as much as a bottle of excellent Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir or a top Paso Robles Syrah.

And then of course, there are the beautiful red wines from France’s Languedoc and Southern Rhone Valley; the regional red and white blends of Italy; the gorgeous blended dry reds from Portugal; the stunning Bordeaux-style blends from Chile and Argentina; the fascinating blends from Eastern Europe; the list goes on and on, even without mentioning the most famous of wine regions.

Many of us American wine lovers have led sheltered lives, not unlike that kid I knew in elementary school who would only eat sandwiches on white bread with one ingredient in between the two slices. It’s time to break out of the varietal rut we’re in.

So next time you’re going to buy a bottle reach for something without the name of a grape on the label. And next time you’re visiting a winery, ask them what they’ve got with a bunch of different kinds of grapes in it. Or just simply remember that you heard it here first: blended wines are the spice of life.

Thanks to reader Jim Kopp whose recent comment reminded me that I had been meaning to write something on this subject for a while. I think at one point sometime ago another reader also suggested this topic.

Original post by Alfonso Cevola