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Popular Varieties Of Wine

There are many types and varieties of wine available. For anyone wanting to try and match a great wine with a specific type of meal, then you can’t go wrong making your choice form one of the more popular varieties around.

Oh, and before we get started, if you love to try new wines, then you can’t go wrong with a wine of the month club, they’re fun and you’re always expanding your wine palate.

Let’s take a look at some of the more popular wine varieties:

Cabernet Sauvignon

Known to many as cab sauv for short, this is a flavorful, full bodied red wine which originated in France. This is one of the best known and most popular wines on the market.

This flavorful red is perfect with steak, roasted lamb and just by itself while unwinding.

Merlot

Merlot should ideally be a very soft red wine that is also quite rich without the high tannin levels of other reds. Whether on its own or blended with a great cab-sav, merlot is lovely served with chicken or can an excellent drinking red wine.

Shiraz

Also known as Syrah, Shiraz is a deep red colored, medium bodied wine whose flavor includes hints of black pepper and berries. This is one of the best wines to go with barbecue as well as many other meat dishes. Shiraz can be aged for a long time and improves well with age.

Originally from Iran, this grape is now very much associated with the Australian Barossa Valley region, where some of the world’s best Shiraz is produced.

Served with peppery or mustard-based sauces on spicy, garnished meats, Shiraz is the perfect complimentary red wine.

Grenache

This soft wine has plum and black pepper flavors and is also a good partner for spicy foods. It is often seen in blends with Shiraz, especially those from France and Spain.

Pinot Noir

Pinot noir is a stunning light- to medium-bodied red wine with a fine fruity aroma. When this fine wine is well aged, it can develop lovely floral flavors.

Chardonnay

This is one of the most popular white wine varieties. Chardonnay makes a lovely wine on its own and it is often blended with other white wines. Chardonnay has notes of melon and lemon, as well as oak; the wine is generally aged in oak for between one and three years. This wine is the perfect complement to salmon and tuna dishes.

Sauvignon Blanc

Sauvignon blanc is a tart, assertively flavored wine with lemon and gooseberry notes. This is a great wine for seafood or on its own, well chilled.

Semillon

Very popular in France and Australia, this grape is less popular outside of those countries. Boasting a mild, honey and toast flavor, this wine is often seen in blends with Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay.

Riesling

This is a German wine which has found favor worldwide and is now grown in many different countries. This is a white wine with a pleasing green apple and lemon flavor which may be either dry or sweet. The dry varieties of Riesling are excellent paired with spicy foods.

Now get out there, start trying new wines (join a wine club if there are no vineyards nearby), and enjoy.

There is a lot more to being a wine enthusiast, they are not just lovers of wine. There are a number of things to know towards refining your taste for wine and enhancing your judgment as to what makes a good wine. One factor is that the wine is made from fermented grape juice. You also should know the grape varieties wines are made from and the process of wine making itself.

There are many kinds of wines, and the more commonly known ones – red, white, rose and champagne – are only a few of many. Wines are usually classified according to the grape varieties used to make them. One grape variety, the Barbera, is often used for red wine. Grown mainly in Piedmont, Italy, this variety is quite adaptable to other regions, and is also grown on a limited scale in the United States. Barbera grapes have a high natural acidity and produce wines with a full-bodied fruity taste.

There are many varieties of wine. Wine enthusiasts know about one variety that is widely grown in many parts of the world: Cabernet Sauvignon. This grape variety, grown primarily in Medoc, France, has found its way to California, Australia and other wine-making countries. Cabernet Sauvignon wines are considered by wine enthusiasts as among the best red wines in the world. They have a distinct aromatic flavor, and have hints of the taste of berries, olives, coffee, mint and herbs all blended together. One of the most popular white wine varieties and producing some of the world’s finest, is the Chardonnay.

A basic understanding of the wine-making process is important to a wine enthusiast, especially if he is interested in going into wine production himself if only for personal consumption. Wine making is an age-old technology and is really simple. One does not need very sophisticated equipment in order to make wines.

To start you have to know what type of grapes to use and where they are grown, the right age for picking, and things like acidity and sugar levels. If you want a particular aromatic flavor, you should be able to tell which grapes will produce that kind of flavor. After the  picking comes the pressing to extract the juices, then fermentation.

Fermentation is quite a delicate process. To stimulate the fermentation process, yeast is added to the juice. Basically, fermentation is the conversion of the sugar in the juice into alcohol. The success of your grape juice turning into good wine, is the kind of yeast used and the absence of any contaminants getting into the mixture during the entire process.

There is so much more to knowing the difference between a Chardonnay and a Cabernet Sauvignon, but the knowledge to the types of wine available is just the beginning for a wine enthusiast.