Different grape varieties: do they taste different?

WINE TALK
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Do different grape varieties taste just as different as varietal bottlings? We know that Mourvedre and Cabernet Sauvignon varietal bottlings won’t often be confused for each other, but could a fresh Cab. Sauv. grape and a fresh Mourved. grape be confused with each other? … just curious.


I’m not sure if this is more of a Cellar Rats question or a Wine Talk question … we’ll start it off here, as I suspect Cellar Rats doesn’t get the traffic WT does…feel free to move it, though.

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They taste different to me. I always thought that’s what makes the wines taste different. [scratch.gif]

You may want to try some yourself. They’re usually pretty good.

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When the grapes are halfway decent, you can totally id different varieties by flavor. When the grapes are poorly planted/cropped heavily/valley floor, they all kinda have various shades of an ambiguous fruitiness. Cab flavors, for one, are very distinctive.

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Brian – Order some of Navarro’s grape juices and see for yourself:

Navarro Vineyards - 2009 Grape Juices" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I don’t think it’s any different from, say, apples, where most people could easily taste the difference between a red delicious, a McIntosh and a Granny Smith.

If anything, the differences should be more distinct in the fruit itself, before fermentation and aging (including oak) add non-fruit elements to the mix.

1 Like
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Hmmmmm…so…let’s take this question to a whole nuther level:
Can you taste the terroir in the grapes???
Jess askin.
Tom

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You can taste the environmental context of almost any fruit that is grown with care

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All else remaining the same, is there a greater difference between flavors of grape varieties, or the varietal bottlings made from those respective grape varieties? W/R/T the wines, the only difference between them is the grape variety used to make each respective wine.

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I had a memorable experience back in '94 when we stayed in Ladoix-Serrigny at the foot of Corton Hill. It was an old mansion that had been cut up into rooms, and the Pinot Noir grapes grew right up to the edge of the parking lot. It was irresistible to pick a few and eat them and the flavor was terrific and mouth filling, the true origin of the Pinot Noir experience. I don’t remember what month it was, probably August, but the grapes we tried were very ripe tasting.

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Re the terroir:

I have tasted both Garganega and Prosecco grapes from prime hillside vineyards right next to grapes harvested at similar yields from the flats and it was a no brainer as to which was from the “cru” (or in the case of the Prosecco, the DOC).

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Brian - your second question is much better.

I don’t know what the correct answer is, but from my own experience, it’s roughly similar.

In other words, when you taste sauvignon blanc grapes, you understand exactly why sauvignon blanc tastes the way it does. Clear varietal profile. And when you taste palomino grapes, well, you don’t get why sherry tastes like it does, but you understand why you rarely find any palomino wine.

Ditto malbec vs cab franc vs syrah vs merlot. They really truly do taste different. It’s not something that shows up only in the finished wine. And here’s the more interesting part - you still taste varietal differences each week as the grapes ripen. So you can tell that the chardonnay is not the same as the sauvignon blanc, even as they get super ripe. And you can tell that the furmint is not the muscat, or the malbec is not the cab. So ripeness, at least in the grape itself, does not blur varietal difference.

But I am not a winemaker and I’ve only walked thru maybe a few dozen vineyards and eaten the grapes. So this is not gospel.

Still, as you framed it the second time, it’s a pretty good question. Based on memory and after several bottles tonight, the flavor differences struck me as being just as apparent in the grapes as the wine, when I tasted them for the first time after finally developing some kind of “varietal profile”. Seemed like a brilliant discovery at the time, but then I realized that it was only logical.

As far as actually tasting the specific terroir, there are three ways to do that. You can taste the terroir because you’ve walked thru the vineyards and seen the soil. Or you can taste it because you’ve read about the soil types and the vineyards, etc. Or you can taste it because . . . oh wait. I guess there are two ways to taste it.

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I think that there is a difference between grapes, but I haven’t had enough side by side to think I could identify one if I just ate it.

I will say, that Traminette is an insanely good grape to eat! I wish I could buy those at the grocery store

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The one that’s always tasted most distinctove to me is viognier. which hints nicely at what the wine will taste like sometimes - you can uasually get some nice vanilla creme brulle overtones in the raw grape, something I couldn’t really say about another white grape

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Totally! The flavor of Viognier at 25+ brix is outrageous- tropical and, like Mike, says-creme brulle. Cabernet also tastes just like Cab. Though Syrah juice doesn’t resemble the wine much, you can really taste the difference between vineyard/soil differences. So, I guess you could say, you can taste terroir.

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I have a new mission in life…to eat ripe Viognier grapes!