Wine For Normal People Radio : Episode 022 Wine Translations -- A Wine By Any Other Name Is EXACTLY the Same (Grape, That Is!)

Not only do "Old World" (Europe) and the "New World" (everywhere else) have different approaches to making wine, it carries through right to the way they name stuff.

In this 'cast we explain the reason for this and cover some major European wine names and what's actually in them... All are grapes you know and love, just masquerading as some other name.

Here are the show notes:

Shout-Outs -Amazing reviews on iTunes, posts on the Facebook page, comments from here and replies on Twitter

Main topic:

• A quick explanation of why Europeans name wines by place... it's all about the Romans
• The whites: Chablis, Condrieu, Vouvray, Sancerre and more
• The reds: Bordeaux, Burgundy, Cote Rotie, Barolo, Rioja, and more
• And grape of the week: Torrontes - the floral, peachy, yet acidic white of Argentina

Need a translation we didn't discuss? Let us know what we missed.

Please drop a comment below or on Twitter @Normalwine or on the Wine For Normal People Facebook Page.

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Wine Translations -- What Are You Drinking?

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Alternative Reds Tasting At Parish: The Re-Cap

Last Wednesday, March 31, I did a tasting at Parish Foods & Goods on Alternative Red Wines. It was a good event (prevented from greatness because some people didn’t make it due to ATL traffic, oh joy!) and we tasted five great wines, all which elicited strong reactions from the crowd.
Here’s the rundown and my take on the wines…(which I didn’t offer at the tasting since I TRY to be objective when teaching!)…

Wine I: Sierra Cantabria Rioja Crianza, Spain, 2005
Hopefully you’re already drinking copious amounts of Rioja. It’s a great wine when made well, although I’d advise against the $10 ones – they kind of suck because the wine needs oak aging to be any good and that costs $$, so the producers pass on those costs to us. Well worth the extra dough though -- it’s warm fruity, spicy goodness when its good.

Rioja is made mainly from the native-to-Spain Tempranillo grape, with Garnacha (Grenache in France), and two other native grapes Graciano and Mazuelo. Tempranillo gets its name from “temprano,” which means early in Spanish. Why? The grape ripens early (not really rocket science). It’s full bodied, low in acid, and tastes like plums and blackberries.

The wine is named after the Rioja region, in north-central Spain, where it’s usually grown at high altitude in both warmer and cooler vineyard sites to get a range of ripeness/flavors in the grapes. With an assortment of flavors to choose from, the winemakers make wine that has depth and complexity in the fruit. Rioja drinkers will concur that the fruit plays a supporting role to the real star of the wine, the spicy, sweet-vanilla character from the oak. The wines can be a little rustic and robust, and they make great pairings with strong flavored dishes.

Sierra Cantabria is made in a modern style, and is fruitier than traditional Rioja. 2005 was a solid vintage for Rioja, but this wine was really tight. It’s a Crianza, which means it is required by Spanish law (yup, the government controls winemaking) to spend at least one year in an oak barrel, and can be released to the market after two years of maturing. This one had four years in the bottle, so it should have been mellow. Maybe I should have decanted this, but I didn’t and I found this wine to be really astringent – the tannins overpowered the fruit, but jealously held on to the warm vanilla-oakiness I’d expect from a Rioja. I think you could do better than this one, which is around $16.

Food Pairings: I like pairing things with foods from the place their made. I think Rioja is awesome with tapas (tortilla Español is awesome), jamón, and other rich food.

Wine II: Damilano Nebbiolo d’Alba, Alba, Italy, 2006
Nebbiolo is a grape native to the Piedmont in Northwest Italy. There are competing theories on where it gets its name, but the most viable one is that it’s from “la nebbia” or the fog that settles on the area during harvest. This grape makes BIG A** wines that can’t be consumed for years because they are way too tannic, acidic, bitter, and nasty until they’ve had some time in bottle penitentiary to calm themselves and transform into truly rich and beautiful wine. It’s the grape of Barolo and Barbaresco and can produce wines with powerful aromas, big tannins, and complex flavors of spice, smoke, tar, and tobacco.

Not all Nebbiolo is destined to a life of an expensive, giant wine. Given the economics of the wine biz, the producers needed to figure out how to tame the beast and sell something in the short term to pay for cellaring all the expensive stuff. Enter Nebbiolo d’Alba, made with modern techniques (colder, shorter fermentations, taking the stems off before crush) to create less complex wines that still have the calling card of a true Nebbiolo -- a bold, firm structure that tastes a little like roses and tar. The best part of these wines: Nebbiolo d’Alba is right next to Barolo and the soil and vineyards are similar – this is an enormous value if you can find a great producer.

Like from Damilano, which has aromas and flavors reminiscent of roses, violets, and plums this wine was a delicious Nebbiolo. Floral, lightly fruity, with great but not-too-harsh tannins, this wine was simply gorgeous. Delicate and powerful at the same time, with a little of the petrichor scent that I just love so much! 2006 was a rough vintage for Nebbiolo, but Damilano still managed to churn out an awesome wine. For $18, this is a steal. Love it. My fave of the night, for certain.

Food Pairings: To continue the theme, I'd pair these with Northern Italian fare. I think roasted and grilled vegetables and meats, tomato-based dishes, or hard cheeses would be ideal!

Wine III: Finca La Linda Malbec, Mendoza, Argentina, 2008
I’ve waxed poetic on Malbec before so I’ll give just a short overview here and say that the grape although originally from Bordeaux and Southwest France, the best is now rich, silky, fruity Malbec from Argentina.

Malbec grapes, grown in the northwestern Mendoza region near the Andes Mountains, are from vines with small berries that make dark colored wines with velvety, intense plumy fruit and they are an awesome value.

The Finca La Linda Malbec was not anywhere close to the quality of the Kaiken I reviewed, but it was half the price ($12) and a great wine. The wine was full of bold cherry, plum, spice, and vanilla-oak aromas and flavors. I liked it and thought it was a great weeknight wine.

Food pairings: With grilled meats and vegetables and hard cheeses this would be an great pairing.


Wine IV Rosenblum North Coast Zinfandel, California, 2007
Like the Malbec, I’ve talked about Zin before too so this is the short recap. Zinfandel is California’s workhorse grape, and grows in 10% of all the state’s vineyards. It’s originally from Croatia and related to Primativo from Italy, but its best expression is really in California. Not to be confused with the powder-puff, sweet, pink, White Zinfandel, red Zin grapes produce rich, robust wines that taste like a raspberry briar patch and are jammy, minty, spicy and complex.

I can’t believe I’ve never reviewed Rosenblum’s North Coast Zinfandel, since it is such a great Zin. It’s a blend of grapes from Mendocino and Sonoma Counties. Mendocino is an up-and-coming but little known area by most. It's mainly hotter than Hades but there are a few spots with very cool climates that are great for high quality vines and these are the valleys from which Rosenblum sources.

The areas in Sonoma where the vines are cultivated are steep, cool, and are known for old vines. This wine was a great Zin – it smelled like brambly blackberry and cherry with vanilla and baking spices and tasted like juicy berries and warm spices. For $14, this is killer.

Food pairings: I’d put it with something like ribs, blackened fish, lamb chops, and eggplant dishes


Wine V: Mettler Petite Sirah, Lodi, California, 2005
This is a grape I’ve written little about, but I’ve got a few in the queue to review (excuse the rhyme) so I’ll do a summary here and get poetic elsewhere. To give a super short summary, Petit Sirah is a dark, acidic, full, and tannic grape that is very fruit forward. It’s related to true Syrah from the Rhône Valley of Southern France, and is a hybrid of this grape and another more obscure variety (Peloursin for you wine dorks).

It really has found a home in Cali, where it smells and tastes like fresh herbs, black pepper, plum, and blueberry. Compared to Syrah, it is less complex, and fruitier.

The Mettler Petite Sirah is from Lodi, an area outside of Sacramento. This is a BIG A** wine -- inky with aromas of dark berries, coffee, and chocolate. By far this was the heaviest wine and was great, but almost like drinking liqueur -- the blueberry, blackberry and spice flavors and the jammy, floral notes were strong and the alcohol was high. It’s a great wine for people who like huge wines and at $20, it packs a lot for the money.

Food Pairings: Heavy stuff -- beef, duck, and barbeque – everything else it will overwhelm.


I wish you were at the tasting to experience the wines! Come see me on April 28th for my next tasting if you're in town!
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Navarro Correas, Collection Privada 2006: Why So Angry?

Argentina is a place where I really want to go. In addition to wine, I love the outdoors, I love travel, and I love practicing my Spanish, and the country has it all (I shouldn't even mention this, but I have an even stronger tie to the country. My sister and I memorized the entire libretto to Evita when we were 4 and 7 and then begged my dad to get us tickets when it came to Broadway...JW, thanks again for making me be Che and all the other dudes in our daily re-enactments. No emotional scars here.).

Wine has been in Argentina since the Spanish explorers robbed and pillaged in the 1600s, and with the expansion of the railroad and a wave of Italian immigration in the 1880s, it became big business. Vineyards were set up in the mountains of Mendoza and the Argentineans drank like there was no tomorrow -- per capita they are in the top ten and have been for a long time (let me tell you, the US doesn't even rank. So drink up, friends!). That said, until a few decades ago, the wine was pretty nasty. It was made mostly from this rustic, tannic, gross grape called Criolla and although the systems were in place for better stuff to be grown, it really wasn't.

Then Chile blasted on the scene, selling wine to the US and making coin doing it. Not to be overshadowed by it's skinny neighbor to the west, Argentina realized that if they grew better stuff, like what Chile was growing (Cab, Merlot, Chard, etc) they may get a piece of the action too. They found a lot of success with a grape that was used in Bordeaux as a blending grape, but is now used less often because it's a pain to grow: Malbec. Then they gambled and put out Torrontes, an aromatic white (which you should try, if you haven't).

All success for these now signature grapes in the land of Evita.

So now Argentina's producers are looking for the big kahuna. To really make it in the US import market, you've got to have the a piece of the big three - Cab, Merlot, and Chard. So these savvy South Americans are making a go at it. Sometimes it works, sometimes, not so much. So let me hesitate no longer and discuss Navarro Correas, Collection Privada Cabernet Sauvignon....

The Wine: Navarro Correas, Collection Privada
The Grape: Cabernet Sauvignon
Vintage: 2006
Price: $11.99
Color: A dark purple, almost black color with a little bit of haze and a little brown around the edges. Warmer vineyard site=darker color, brown edges = it's gettin' older. Reds lighten up as they age. The brown edge is like grey hair on a person.
Smell: Right off the bat, strangely, I got a tomato-V8-grape juicy juice thing, with some dried oregano (pizza anyone?). On second whiff, there were expected smells. Cranberry, sour cherry, black currant, and sugar plum were first. Then I smelled rose, and nutmeg-vanilla stuff too.
Taste: This wine was like an adolescent. The components of normalcy were all there -- cranberry, sour cherry, dark raspberry, with some musk, leather, and licorice -- but the texture was so awkward that I felt helpless in the face of it. I tried this one over two nights to see if it would change or mature, so to speak. Nope. Raging angry tannins and high acid ran roughshod on my mouth. Between the tannins in the grape and the tannins of the oak -- ouch. That's all I can say. It was so aggressive and mean, the only relief I got was that the acid was high enough to shorten the finish and wash out that punishing texture.
Drink or Down the Sink?: Right now, this is Sink. I'm crying for you, Argentina, because I know you can do better. Perhaps with a few years of age this could be drinkable, and perhaps there are other producers that have tamed the tannins, but if I took this as an example, we're looking at a rebellious teenager trying to find its way. I'll give a few more a chance, knowing that if it doesn't work out, there's always beautiful Mendoza Malbec to fall back on. Readmore »»