What Do Various Grapes Taste Like? (Resources Needed)

WINE TALK
1

Ok, this might well be the most moronic question ever posted, but please don’t flame me too badly – I was wondering if there’s a good resource (online ideally) that can tell me what certain grapes are “supposed” to taste like. In other words, I have a pretty good idea about grapes that I’ve tried before – but what about more esoteric grapes?

Background: on a whim I picked up a bottle of a wine made from St. Laurent grapes. I have no idea what’s in store and even wikipedia wasn’t much help. Is there a good resource that catalogues the profile of various grapes?

Yeah, I’m an idiot but if anyone has any suggestions I would appreciate it.

2

Corey…No…not an idiot…a perfectly good question. Alas…no suggestions.

As for StLaurent…my post from a week ago:

  1. ForlornHope Ost-Intrigen St.Laurent RicciVnyd/Calif/Carneros (13.3%; 6 cs; whole cluster frmtd; 70 cs) 2011> :
    Very dark/black color; bit alcoholic very intense blueberry/herbal/blackberry/rosemary powerfully aromatic
    slight earthy/loamy nose; fairly tart rather tannic powerful/blueberry/black cherry/herbal/rosemary ripe/
    chocolaty/almost Port-like quite structured flavor w/ some tannins; very long intense/blueberry/black cherry/
    herbal/rosemary slight earthy/dusty/chocolaty finish w/ some tannins; needs 2-8 yrs; a stunning/unusual red
    w/ powerful aromatics; a steal at $22.00

  1. Sattler St.Laurent Burgenland (Q, trocken; 13.0%; > www.ErichSattler.At> ) Tadten/Austria 2008> : Med.dark color;
    some earthy/dusty/coarse bit blueberry/StLaurent slight herbal fairly fragrant nose; soft earthy/dusty some
    blueberry/StLaurent/Blaufrankish-like/black cherry bit dilute flavor w/ light/bitey tannins; med.short rather
    earthy/loamy/dusty light blackberry/blueberry/StLaurent/black cherry finish w/ light/bitey tannins; a rather
    pleasant/coarse StLaurent that resembles Blaufrankish quite a bit. $17.00 (KK)

  1. StLaurent: This is a variety indigenous to Austria that apparently originally migrated there from Alsace
    thru Germany. See RobTebeau’s discussion:
    Fringe Wine: St. Laurent - Burgenland, Austria
    It seems to show a lot of PinotNoir similarities, but there is no indication that Pinot is part of its
    genetic makeup. StLaurent and Blaufrankisch were the cross that produced Zweigelt, Austria’s more widely
    planted red grape. Grown mostly in the Burgenland. StLaurent is more widely planted in the CzechRepublic,
    though I’ve never seen one of those wines in the USofA.
    The RicciVnyd, a friend of Matt’s, is the only known planting of StLaurent in the USofA. The ones from
    Matt remind me a bit of PinotMeunier, but w/ more earthiness. In the 2011 vintage, Matt made only a tiny
    6 cs worth. Therein lies a tale. The vnyd lies down in the Carneros…not a highly populated area. In the
    Fall of 2011, someone(s) snuck into the vnyd in the dead of night and ripped off the vnyd of its crop.
    The thieves undoubtedly thought they were getting some primo Carneros PinotNoir. They are probably very
    disappointed in their “Pinot” and, hopefully, found another vnyd to rip off this year. Matt was able to
    go into Ricci and salvage what little remained of the crop. LosAlamos probably has more F-H StLaurent,
    per capita, than any city in this great Nation…all of 6 btls (now only 5)!!!
    Tom
3

Very helpful Tom.

I’d love to know of a resource that catalogues all varietals, but this is a great start at least for that bottle (guess I will pop soon).

Thanks.

4

I’ve never looked at it, but Jancis Robinson’s Wine Grapes: A Complete Guide to 1,368 Vine Varieties, Including Their Origins and Flavours looks like it might answer all your questions.

5

It doesn’t have a lot of obscure varieties, but Wine Spectator takes a crack at it:

http://www.winespectator.com/webfeature/show/id/Varietal-Characteristics_1001

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Cory - I’d submit that there is NO such resource. I’ve had a fair bit of St. Laurent in Austria and Hungary, so I suppose I have an idea of what it can be like in those places, but that’s pretty limiting, no?

What you’re asking is whether there’s some kind of varietal typicity and I don’t think it’s a dumb question at all. It’s actually a very logical question. But IMHO, it’s also a HUGE mistake.

“Typicity” is just a way to justify your prejudice w/out tasting. It’s what makes you decide that CA Pinot Noir or Nebbiolo can’t be good because it’s not Burgundy or Barolo.

The idea of terroir is that grapes express themselves differently depending on where they’re grown. So I can tell you that Zinfandel from Burgenland does NOT taste like Zinfandel from Dry Creek Valley. Syrah grown in Burgenland doesn’t taste like Syrah grown in Barossa Valley or Hermitage either. So how to describe it?

And it’s the Americans who came up with the idea of selling wine by the variety. Smart move, but limiting. The point of blending Syrah and Grenache and Mourvedre isn’t so it tastes like those three blended together, it’s so it tastes like something entirely different.

Finally, some grapes have dominating personalities, whereas others don’t. Some grapes just have a character that calls out their identities. Walking vineyards in Mendoza, in the Loire, in Long Island, in Lake Ballaton, or in Napa, when you pick a Sauvignon Blanc grape, you taste Savignon Blanc. But if you pick Chardonnay, what do you taste? Depends a lot on where it’s grown but the wine that results depends at least as much on the battonage, the M/L fermentation, the oak, etc., because Chardonnay just doesn’t have an assertive personality, at least insofar as I’ve been able to discern.

Syrah is a great example. One reason it’s a hard sell is because customers don’t know what to expect with Syrah from the West Coast. Personally, I happen to love that because that means people are not coming to it with great prejudices. But then how do describe it? And what does it matter if you blend it anyway?

I don’t mean to sound like a jerk because clearly there is a reason people plant one grape instead of another, but a great deal of what we think is characteristic of the grape is only characteristic of our limited experience with it. Monastrell was always considered funky and stinky. That’s because of the way in which it was handled. Actually, it can also make a really nice fresh, wine that has hints of blueberries. And if you spend time doing blind tastings to test your ability to discern a particular grape or grapes, you’ll soon learn that it’s just not that easy.

Good luck!

7

I think you’re stating it too extremely, Greg. Some grapes do have distinctive signatures. Cabernet, except when it’s overripe in Napa, is usually pretty easy to spot. Similarly, pinot noir usually shows through even in radically different styles of winemaking and in different regions. I’ve certainly spotted primitivos that were clearly the same grape as zinfandel. Cabernet franc’s vegetal note is often quite conspicuous.

Where the varietal character is very often is with very ripe fruit. In California, I often find cabs, syrahs and even pinots all kind of converge in flavors when the fruit was picked very ripe, particularly if there’s a heavy layer of oak on top. (And the high alcohol in the wines from ripe grapes extracts more oak flavors from the barrel to boot.)

In whites, the aromatic grapes (riesling, muscat, gewurtz) certainly have strong fruit personalities, though those vary with the region and sweetness level. Chenin blanc’s waxiness often shows through, as does the apricot/peach note in viognier. (I make no claims for chardonnay.)

So, while the terroir and winemaking have a huge impact, I don’t think it’s wrong to ask what the archetypical flavors are. But I think you have to taste lots of wines to divine it. Reading descriptions won’t really get you there.

8

Corey,
Steve Slacther makes the comment:

I was especially pleased to see many varieties have a description of the taste of their wines. From a drinker’s perspective this must be the most important information, and in other wine grape books I have often felt short-changed when this is lacking.

in his review of JancisRobinson’s new WineGrapes book:

Course it’ll cost you $110 to read that, but it looks to be a great reference book.
Tom

9

I’d say there are 3 groups of grapes: the classic ones (CabSauv, Chard and so on) that we recognize easily because of habit; grapes with strong character (riesling, gewurtz, muscat, grenache, vermentino…) that really stand out; and a ton of grapes with little character, rarely used on their own, that are a lot of harder to perceive (except with a lot of training of course).

10

Thanks to all for their replies.

My original query was inspired by myriad reasons, which I may as well explain.

I like to expand my knowledge, so I like to try things out of the mainstream when the opportunity arises. A local wine store had a sale that included a lot of Austrian red wines, most of which I have not enjoyed. OTOH, it’s hard to know whether these are simply “bad examples” of what might otherwise be interesting varietals or whether they are fair reflections of a grape that I simply don’t care for.

Also, I’m constantly curious about what I should try next and was hoping to find a “guide” of sorts that would give me clues. For instance, what I tend to like Pinot Noirs with red fruit (especially cherry), good acidity and a certain silkiness to them (that’s the abbreviated version). I wonder if there are other grapes that would have similar flavor profiles (perhaps less loved and available at a cheaper price-point for midweek drinking). And my new girlfriend seems to like “guava” in her wine. I’m completely lost in this regard.

Finally, I admit that sometimes certain wines “confuse me”. For example, I am not used to tasting “cranberry/orange rind” in Pinot Noir, yet I consistently get that note from Rivers-Marie. Also, I have had a few Loring wines that, if served blind, I would have pegged as a Zinfandel.
Perhaps this is due to a lack of experience – I drink mostly Pinot Noir, though my “conversion” (from Cali Cabs) is still relatively recent. Not to threadjack, but I don’t know how to rate wines that I enjoy, but that don’t fit my concept of what is “typical” for the grape. Perhaps this goes to the flaw of ratings more generally, but if a Pinot tastes like a Zin, to you think less of it because of a lack of typicity, or do you judge it on its own merits as a delicious wine?

FWIW, I think the next steps in my wine education shall primarily be focused on trying different expressions of the Pinot Noir grape, especially focused on Northern CA (Humboldt County/Anderson Valley), Oregon and --heaven help me – Burgundy (especially Volnay).

11

Your 2nd post is much more of can of worms than your 1st. There’s a real rift between wine lovers (and even more between critics) on whether a wine should be appraised on its own merits, w/o context, instead of as an example of its grape / appellation / etc. I have to say I often find myself in the 2nd camp for regions I know well, and in the 1st on regions I’m discovering, for rather obvious reasons actually.

In essence your question is not about how grapes taste like, but which one can be considered “representative” of its grape / area / appellation, and that’s A LOT more difficult, as it’s highly subject to debate.

12

Guillaume,

I understand the rift that you describe, but I’m not sure I can even take sides without some fundmental building blocks of knowledge. As I don’t have unlimited resources, it is impossible to explore every region/grape/winemaker/etc. as thoroughly as I’d like, hence the desire to have a guide to use as a measuring stick to (a) point me in the direction of grapes I’d like to try (b) allow me to contextualize what I’m tasting in my glass and (c) understand the “typicity” of a grape (or region).

As a side note, I recall that Appellation America has tried to do this to an extent with wine regions. Andrew Morris (Briceland) posted a link to an article that AA wrote, whereby Humboldt County Pinot Noirs were most often characterized by bing cherries – which is actually dead on what I love in Pinots (moreso than strawberry or darker fruits). So in a way, AA tried to show the influence of terroir on the grape, rather than the fundamental characteristics of the grape itself.

13

I’m just not sure how much reading will help. I think you’d be better getting recommendations for archetypal wines for a particular region and then taste those.

14

Thanks John. It’s more than that really, it’s that I also want to have a resource that I can use to find characteristics in grapes that aren’t even talked about. Maybe I’ll have to stump up the cash for Jancis’ book.

15

Corey, I’m with you in the sense that I wish critics would provide domaines profiles with some kind of compass of traditional vs modern and so on, but it’s really complicated to do and one person’s traditional is another person’s modern. That’s the only redeeming value I find in most large tastings: they provide a superficial understanding of what’s going on and are therefore useful to know where to start looking. It’s really hard to write about wine in a meaningful way, and I find that there’s just no replacement for tasting.

16

Good advice.

Corey - my problem with things like “typicity” is that it is really hard to separate what is characteristic of the grape from what is characteristic of what we’re used to.

Your comment that something may or may not fit YOUR concept of what is typical for the grape is a pretty wise insight IMO. It’s completely logical. And you realize that it doesn’t mean something is always and forever “typical”.

What Guillame said about certain grapes being familiar because of habit is important and even that is limiting. For example, I drink a lot of Tempranillo and figured in blind tastings I could identify it. I do blind tastings almost every week specifically to find out things like that. Well, it turns out that it’s kind of possible to ID an older Rioja, but it’s not so possible to ID the dominant grape if it’s from somewhere else, and/or if it’s younger. Sometimes it seems more like some kind of Syrah or Cab if it’s from somewhere else. So after probably thousands of tastes, I still can’t really tell you what is “typical”.

Also, don’t forget that in the 1970s and 1980s, the US was recreating a wine industry and it looked to France, as the epitome of wine. Italian wine and food were considered second rate ( the current dominance of Italian cooking in the US is really recent) and there were very few other countries of note. Many were hindered by WW2 memories and/or destruction.

So we think Cab and Merlot are “international” varieties, whereas we think things like Nebbiolo and Aglianico are not. Even worse, you hear people talk about “noble grapes”, a phrase sometimes attributed to Émile Peynaud as well as others.

Why was Cab “noble”? French pride and chauvinism aside, it’s only because as the wine industry in the US developed, Nebbiolo and Aglianico were laggards in the popular US psyche and were not planted in Napa so what’s “typical” for those grapes is only defined by Piedmont or Campagna.

Schools contribute to that IMO - sommeliers and other wine professionals have a hierarchy of grapes. They’re expected to know about Burgundy and Bordeaux but many don’t know a damned thing about other regions.

It’s very true that some grapes have very strong personalities in many environments. Muscat for example, is likely to have a floral nose wherever it’s from, and it’s grown many places. But who’s to say what’s typical for Fiano once it’s removed from the very small area we usually find it? Or any number of grapes really? Garnacha behaves very differently in different countries, as does Pinot Noir. Is the ripe, big style of Pinot Noir NOT “typical” of the grape when it’s grown in a warm region with plenty of time to ripen?

How do you compare grapes grown on completely different continents? What happens is that we say, if it’s grown in the US, that it’s not like its French counterpart, and therefore not as good. But we don’t do that with other grapes. Garnacha came from Spain. Because Chateauneuf du Pape doesn’t taste like the wine of Aragon, is it not as good?

Finally, you touch on something else. I don’t know which Austrian wines you’ve been drinking, but it very well may be that they just weren’t very good. Not all of them are.

And lastly, the addition of small amounts of different grapes can really change the expression of a grape. So even if you get an idea of what is a “typical” Garnacha, the addition of some Syrah and Monastrell will hide that typicity anyway.