GOOD INEXPENSIVE WINE

GOOD INEXPENSIVE  WINE

GOOD INEXPENSIVE  WINE

CABERNET SAUVIGNON

This grape variety was originally used to produce French Medoc, Graves, and Bordeaux. Today Cabernet Sauvignon is grown in almost every growing region, such as California, Chile, and Australia.

Cabernet Sauvignon delivers wines that are full of tannin and flavour, with distinctive aromas (or nose), that are suitable for long storage in oak barrels. The nose and flavour suggest blackcurrant, violet, cedarwood, and tobacco.

GOOD WINE MERLOT

Merlot is known from its association with the Bordeaux wines of St Emilion and Pomerol. Merlot is also grown and used in wine making in various Balkan countries, Italy, Chile, California, and Australia.

Merlot is softer, somewhat more rounded in flavour, and above all lower in tannin than Cabernet Sauvignon. For this reason both grapes are often used to supplement each other's qualities. The nose and flavour of a good Merlot conjures up red fruits such as cherry, but sometimes redcurrant.

GOOD WINE CABERNET FRANC

Cabernet Franc is often used to blenwith the two types of grape previously mentioned but the purest Cabernet Franc wines come from the Loire. Wines from Bourgueil, Chinon, and Saumur-Champigny are often of surprisingly high quality. The wine produced with this grape is often softer and lower in tannin than Cabernet Sauvignon but much fuller than Merlot. Cabernet Franc is particularly distinguished by its fruitiness, with echoes of strawberry, blackcurrant, and aroma of freshly sliced green pepper (paprika

GOOD WINE PINOT NOIR

Pinot Noir above all is the red grape of Burgundy. It is also used to make red Sancerre and Pinot Noir

wines of Alsace. This grape also produces excellent wines in Italy, the Balkans, Hungary, South America, California, and Oregon. Wine from the Pinot Noir grape is generally rather more elegant and generous than it is heavy. It is characterised by earthy undertones, somewhere between stable air and manure. After the initial shock, a second fruity taste is discovered, principally of redcurrant, wild strawberry, and sometimes of cherry.

GOOD WINE SYRAH (SHIRAZ)

This is the only grape permitted for the northern Rhone wines (Hermitage, Crozes-Hermitage, St Joseph, Cote Rotie, Cornas). Syrah largely has characteristics similar to those of southern Rhone growing areas (Chateauneuf de Pape, Gigondas). Syrah grapes (or Shiraz as they are also known) are currently grown in South Africa, Australia, and the USA. Syrah is deeply coloured and fat. The wine is full and strongly flavoured often requiring some maturing in the bottle in certain years. A good Syrah is often easily recognised by its spicy and peppery nose and flavour of sun ripened fruit with almost animal undertones that recall the smell of a hot saddle after a long ride on a horse.

GOOD WINE GAMAY

Gamay is world famous through Beaujolais but wines are also widely made with the Gamay grape along the Loire, and in Touraine.

Above all, a Gamay wine should be fruity. Raspberry, wild strawberry, currant, and cherry can be discerned. Floral notes are also detected in the better Beaujolais crus. The more simple the wine, the lighter and brighter, the better the quality, the fuller and more generous it is.