Wine Words: The Difference Variety and Varietal

posted by Scott in Wine, Guest Bloggers

The grape Cabernet Sauvignon is not a varietal. It isn’t. Sounds strange, right? But neither is Chardonnay or Rkatsitelli (its big in Russian), for that matter. The reason this might sound odd is because so many people use the word “varietal” incorrectly. There is no such thing as a grape varietal. Varietal is an adjective (and sometimes a noun) that describes a wine that is made from a single grape variety. So, Cabernet Sauvignon the grape is a variety, while Cabernet Sauvignon the wine is a varietal. You can see how thing can easily get confused.  Of course, you can also call a grape variety a “cultivar,” but most people will have no clue what you’re talking about unless they’re botanists.

The word varietal, as pertaining to wine, was popularized by Frank Schoonmaker in the early 1940’s. Schoonmaker was a tireless promoter of American wine, and, in the days before anyone had ever heard of Napa or Sonoma, he figured the best way to endorse such wines was by grape variety. Thus, a wine made from the Merlot grape would be varietally labeled. This stood in stark contrast to the common practice of the day, generic labeling, which can still be seen today on dusty bottles labeled “Hearty Burgundy” and “New York Chablis.”

Anyway, Schoonmaker’s efforts paid off. The vast majority of New World wines are varietal wines nowadays. This is all fine and well, but when the characteristics of such varietal wines are attributed to the grape variety that produced it, the misuse of the word varietal ensues. When grapes are said to have varietal characteristics, as opposed the characteristics common to the grape’s variety, the word is being used incorrectly. The distinction is subtle, but relevant.

The variety/varietal mix-up is widespread, so there’s no worry if you’ve used the words wrong in the past. Everyone makes the mistake. It is an easy one to make. Now you know better so feel free to correct your friends, or, better yet, the salesperson at your local wine shop.

Scott Rosenbaum is director of operations for the International Wine Center and wine buyer for the retailer DrinkUpNY.

The Flying Automobile of Wine Packaging

posted by Scott in Wine, Guest Bloggers

I want my flying car. Forget that I don’t know how to fly anything. You bet your ass I’d learn if I had a flying automobile. My demand isn’t unreasonable; after all, us good consumers have been promised one since WWII. Truth be told, they do exist, but they’re lame. The dream and the reality never quite meshed, and the flying car never quite took off.

Similarly, why is it we have yet to see the plastic wine bottle? Sure, its less exciting than the imagined thrill of soaring through the clouds in a Honda Accord, but certainly it makes some kind of sense to see one on the market. With the world gone green (as opposed to wild), the plastic bottle would reduce carbon emissions by shear fact that it is relatively weightless in comparison with its glass counterpart and thus easier to transport.

Some critics contest that plastic, in this case PET, bottles are prone to oxygen permeation, a big no-no for wine storage, but recent technological developments have been employed to combat this problem. How effective the solution is has yet to be determined.

Of course, the forward-thinking Brits already have the plastic wine bottle in stores available for purchase. But short of buying 187ml single serving bottles, I have yet to find a plastic wine bottle in these United States. If you live in London, feel free to send me a bottle. No worries, its less likely to break and less expensive to ship than your normal glass bottle (and every bit as recycleable). There is little reason the plastic bottle should go the way of the flying car, an unrealized dream of technology’s capability to make life a little more convenient. Of course, there was a time when the flying automobile seemed like a swell idea.

Scott Rosenbaum is director of operations for the International Wine Center and wine buyer for the retailer DrinkUpNY.

Wine Words: Limited Meaning

posted by Scott in Wine, Guest Bloggers

My first grade teacher wasn’t very good. I don’t recall her ever doing anything other than playing piano or distributing milk and cookies for snack time. She did, however, teach me one thing I remember. “Nice,” she said, “is a nice word.” I believe she thought the phrase one of endearment for the word nice, but I have always understood it to be a warning against blasé language. Nice is a word that isn’t very effective at conveying anything. Nice is innocuous, meaningless language. And what is language without meaning? Well, nothing at all really, except maybe a distraction, excuse, or filler.

Wine is not without its “nice” words. Take a look most wine labels and behold the vast swath of unexpressive garble. The word “reserve,” for instance, has no real (i.e. legal) meaning on wines produced in the U.S.A. To be fair, many wineries that produce multiple ranges of wines label their higher tier wines as their “reserve” line. Unfortunately, less scrupulous wineries have taken to labeling all their wines as “reserve” regardless of the fact that they don’t produce a non-reserve wine. Likewise, you can also safely ignore those wines labeled “select.” “Reserve” and “select” wines are no more unique than the “Special Edition” Pirates of the Caribbean DVD that 100 million people received for Christmas this year.

This brings me to my favorite example of semantic folly, wine labels that proclaim that the wine within is “limited edition.” This phrase means nothing because all wine is limited edition. Both 2006 Yellowtail Shiraz and 1997 Screaming Eagle are limited edition; both were produced in finite (read “limited”) quantities for their respective vintage (read “edition”). “Limited edition” is purposely misleading to consumers. It is deceptive and it makes me angry.

I understand the use of the phrase “limited edition” if a wine is a once off, an experiment, a trial of a new variety or such, but once that wine is produced for more than a one vintage, its time to lose the verbiage.

There are plenty of other terms (like those concerning production such as “artisan” and “handcrafted,” and those describing tastes like “rich” and “balanced”) that are tossed around on back labels so frequently that they’ve entered the realm of nicety. Beware of wines described as such. These wines are trying to sell you something: themselves.

Scott Rosenbaum is director of operations for the International Wine Center and wine buyer for the retailer DrinkUpNY.