Beaujolais: See Gamay.
Boğazkere is a grape variety and a Turkish wine originating from Diyarbakır Province near the Tigris River in Southeastern Turkey. Not widely known outside of Turkey, it is only listed here because it is possibly the world’s original grape from the “Garden of Eden.” The wine is long finishing, with a dark-red color and dark-blue hue, with very rich, strong aromas of dried red fruits and spices. Good for aging up to ten years. It is recommended for drinking with red meat kebabs, turkey, salmon, and cheese, especially eastern Anatolian cheddar or Gruyere cheese. The most famous Boğazkere wine is called Buzbağ, grown in the Anatolia region near the Euphrates River. It is sometimes produced in an ice wine fashion, with the grapes allowed to hang on the vine until the first frost, and then crushed while the grapes are still frozen. Historically, the area where Buzbağ is produced is considered the probable birthplace of wine. The biblical account of Noah after the flood has him planting a vineyard near the area where the ark landed. This area is presumed to be Mt. Ararat, where Buzbağ is still being produced today by the Turkish state-run vineyards of Tekel near the town of Elazığ, the source of the Euphrates River and the birthplace of civilization.
Bordeaux (Roald Dahl): Strictly speaking, Bordeaux does not belong in this list, as it is the name of a region and a type of wine, not a grape varietal. Bordeaux wines are a traditional blend of six different grapes as described elsewhere under “Claret.” In his magnificent short story, “Taste,” the English writer Roald Dahl describes a not-so-friendly wager between two men to identify the vineyard and the vintage of a specific bottle of Bordeaux. In describing the thought processes of the man doing the blind tasting, the author proves himself to be a sublime master of the Médoc:
“First, then, which district in Bordeaux does this wine come from? That’s not too difficult to guess. It is far too light in the body to be from either St Emilion or Graves. It is obviously a Médoc. There’s no doubt about that. Now—from which commune in Médoc does it come? That also, by elimination, should not be too difficult to decide. Margaux? No. It cannot be Margaux. It has not the violent bouquet of a Margaux. Pauillac? It cannot be Pauillac, either. It is too tender, too gentle and wistful for Pauillac. The wine of Pauillac has a character that is almost imperious in its taste, And also, to me, a Pauillac contains just a little pith, a curious dusty, pithy flavour that the grape acquires from the soil of the district. No, no. This—this is a very gentle wine, demure and bashful in the first taste, emerging shyly but quite graciously in the second. A little arch, perhaps, in the second taste, and a little naughty also, teasing the tongue with a trace, just a trace of tannin. Then, in the after-taste, delightful consoling and feminine, with a certain blithely generous quality that one associates only with the wines of the commune of St Julien. Unmistakably this is a St Julien.”
The wine expert in this most delightful story, using the same unrelenting logic, finally even identifies the name of the small and little-known vineyard where the wine was grown and bottled.
Brunello (Richard Condon): Brunello is a Sangiovese clone grown around the Tuscan village of Montalcino, where the wine is known as Brunello di Montalcino. It is one of Italy’s best-known and most expensive wines. According to the American novelist Richard Condon, Brunello di Montalcino is considered to be the only acceptable wine to offer well-connected New York family men of Sicilian extraction.
Cabernet Franc is a red wine grape that is often used in Bordeaux blends to add acidity and aroma. DNA testing indicates that, crossed with Sauvignon Blanc, it is the parent of Cabernet Sauvignon and makes wines that are lighter and fruitier than Cabernet Sauvignon. Mostly planted in the Bordeaux region for blending, it is actually better known in the Loire valley, particularly Chinon, Anjou, and Saumur, where it produces elegant, earthy wines that accompany just about any food. In Bordeaux, Cabernet Franc is usually employed as a minor (10-15 percent) component in a blend with other varieties. The only notable exception is at Château Cheval Blanc in St.-Émilion which contains 57 percent Cabernet Franc, 40 percent Merlot, and 3 percent Malbec. The American wine critic, Robert Parker, gave an unfavorable review of Château Cheval Blanc’s 1981 vintage in a widely circulated article. On Parker’s next visit to the Château, the owner’s dog bit his leg and drew blood. Parker asked the owner for a bandage, and was handed instead a copy of the offending magazine article and instructed to use that to staunch the bleeding.
Cabernet Sauvignon (Charles Dickens): Whether it was the best of times or whether it was the worst of times; whether the vineyard was north of the Equator or south—the first grape varietal to be planted would usually be Cabernet Sauvignon. If Dickens is the world’s most widely-read author, this small, dark, almost black, thick-skinned grape is perhaps the world’s best-known and most-widely grown red wine varietal. Originally from the Bordeaux region of France, it is now to be found both north and south of the equator in a wide variety of climatic conditions. Since first being discovered as an accidental cross between Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc, two of the predominant grapes grown in Southwest France, Cabernet Sauvignon has been the major component of Claret—the red wine blended in Bordeaux for the English market. Traditional Claret (or Bordeaux) is a blend of six grapes—Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Malbec, Petit Verdot, and Carménère—but by far the most important component is Cabernet Sauvignon.
One of the reasons for the popularity of Cabernet Sauvignon is its ease of cultivation. The grapes are small and dark, the skins are thick and tough, the roots are strong and resistant to frost and disease, and the vine is tolerant of a wide range of climatic conditions—with the result that it is grown just about everywhere that wine is made. This is the Charles Dickens of grapes. Dickens’ novels are read everywhere, and have been translated into every language on earth. Like the grape, his stories are resilient and universal; originally inspired by the English market, they have now been blended and integrated into a wide variety of cultures. It is hard to imagine any wine-producing country where they do not grow Cabernet Sauvignon and also read Charles Dickens.
A consequence of the small grapes having thick skins is that the resulting juice of Cabernet Sauvignon is high in tannins and phenols. The concentration of phenols and tannins create a powerful complexity of taste and flavors, but also requires many years of aging before the tannins have mellowed enough to be drinkable. Typically, Cabernets taste of dark cherry, cedar, tobacco, and black currant, while cool climate growth can add green pepper or olive flavors. Up to eighteen months of aging in small oak barrels before bottling Cabernet is common in order to achieve more complexity. For exceptional vintages, especially in Bordeaux, the wine spends even longer in the oak.
This need for aging was ideal for the English market. Not only did these more complex wines appeal to the English taste, but both English and Dutch navies would load up with Cabernet Sauvignon-based wines for the long sea voyages to their empires in the Far East.
President Jefferson, by the end of the eighteenth century, was already laying down Bordeaux’s Cabernet Sauvignon wines for aging—most notably Château Haut-Brion—and the grape’s reputation through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has been based on its ability to age, to improve, and develop complexities over the decades.
Another factor which increased the tannic nature of the Bordeaux wines was the local habit of allowing maceration (when the juice is exposed to the skins) to continue for as long as three weeks. Southwest France is rich in game, and the local winemakers insisted on enjoying a three week hunting holiday following the hard work of the harvest. Because they had spent so long macerating, these highly tannic wines required as long as twenty years of aging before they were drinkable. Modern winemakers tend to forgo the hunting trip and macerate for just a few days in order to make the wine more immediately accessible.
Cabernet Sauvignon has a natural affinity for oak when it is fermented and/or aged in oak barrels. Not only does the oak absorb and mellow t
he grape’s high tannins—thus speeding the aging process—but the barrel’s natural flavors of spice and vanilla perfectly complement the blackcurrant and tobacco flavors of Cabernet Sauvignon.
Although Cabernet Sauvignon will always be associated with the wines of Bordeaux, the grape is now inseparable from California’s Napa Valley, where it is bottled as 100 percent Cabernet Sauvignon rather than blended as in Bordeaux. Cabernet Sauvignon also created some controversy in Italy when it was blended with Sangiovese to create Super Tuscans.
Because of its international popularity, historic reputation, and ease of cultivation, Cabernet Sauvignon is now grown all over the world. At the same time, its very popularity has created a certain resistance, and it is often resented as a “foreign” vine and a “colonizer.” Dickens, too, during his first visit to America, was widely criticized in the press for complaining that his work was pirated. As a foreigner, the US press argued, he should be grateful that he was popular enough to be copied.
Carignan is a high-yielding red wine grape that was so widely planted in Spain, Italy, and France that it was considered responsible for Europe’s “wine lake” until, in the 1990s, farmers were actually paid to uproot and destroy their vines. Too tannic and acidic to be drunk alone, it was traditionally used for blending and adding color to other varietals such as Grenache. Originally planted by the Phoenicians almost three thousand years ago, the varietal is now found all over the world, and until recently was one of the most-widely planted of all varietals.
Carménère (Harper Lee): A member of the Cabernet family of grapes, the name Carménère comes from the French word for crimson (carmin), both for the crimson color the leaves display in autumn and also for the dark red color of the wine. The color is so deep and rich that it seems almost black in the bottle and in the glass, until you tilt it, and light filters through and changes the edge to violet. In addition to the deep red color, Carménère wine offers the aromas found in red fruits, spices, and berries. Carménère is also known as Grande Vidure, and is one of the original six varietals from Bordeaux, along with Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Malbec, and Petit Verdot, which were blended by the English to make the wine known as Claret. Carménère produces a medium-body wine with tannins gentler and softer than those in Cabernet Sauvignon, and is best drunk young.
After the ravages of Phylloxera in the late nineteenth century, it was believed that the Carménère vines had all been lost and it was never replanted. However, DNA testing on what was thought to be a type of Merlot found in Chile during the late twentieth century proved it to be the long-lost Carménère. For some reason, Chile is one of the only countries in the world that was not affected by Phylloxera, which is how the varietal survived. As such, Chile produces the vast majority of Carménère wines available today, and as the Chilean wine industry grows, more experimentation is being carried out on Carménère’s potential as a blending grape, especially with Cabernet Sauvignon and also with the country’s original grape, Pais.
The obvious literary pairing must be with Harper Lee, the much-revered author of that great American classic, To Kill a Mockingbird. Since the publication of Mockingbird in 1960, Lee had retired from public life to her hometown in Alabama. Mockingbird was believed to be her only novel. In fact, she had written an earlier novel in 1957, which was titled Go Set a Watchman, but the manuscript had somehow become lost. For the next fifty-seven years, the lost manuscript lay hidden and forgotten in a safety deposit box in Lee’s hometown, Monroeville, Alabama. Just as the “lost” Carménère grape was “rediscovered” in Chile in 1994, so too the “lost” manuscript of Go Set a Watchman was rediscovered and published in 2015.
Chardonnay (Jane Austen): Chardonnay is a classic green-skinned, white wine grape grown all around the world. The original fame of Chardonnay comes from its success in the Burgundy and Champagne regions of France. White Burgundy must be made from the Chardonnay grape unless the label indicates it was made from a much less well-known grape, Aligote. Until the 1960s, Chardonnay was almost unknown outside of Burgundy and Champagne, yet suddenly, within twenty years it was being grown everywhere.
Traditionally in Burgundy—especially in Chablis—the limestone soil and the cool climate gives Chardonnay a citrusy and slightly chalky taste with an acidic edge. Chardonnays from the New World, however, are far less austere, and are noted for their riper and more full-bodied texture. This is why many Americans are disappointed when they taste what they perceive as thin and sharp French Chardonnays, and why the French are dismissive of what they perceive as the vulgar and sugary Chardonnays from California. Of all the wine-producing regions of the New World, Oregon, with its cool climate and similar limestone soil, produces a Chardonnay closest to the French original.
More than any other varietal, Chardonnay represents New World winemaking: fruity, full-bodied, flavorful, and delicious. The Australians were the first to produce the new mouth-filling, easy-to-drink Chardonnays, but they were swiftly copied by Californian, South African, and South American winemakers.
Since the first plantings of Chardonnay by the Cistercian monks in twelfth century Chablis, the Chardonnay grape has now spread all over the world and is grown in more wine regions than any other grape—including Cabernet Sauvignon. One reason for its popularity was of course the success of Californian Chardonnays in the 1976 Judgment of Paris, but more important is its ease of cultivation. Its early-budding feature makes it well adapted to regions with short growing seasons, and although it prefers the chalk, clay, and limestone soils of Burgundy, it adapts to almost any soil conditions. Chardonnay is a very robustly forgiving grape and extremely malleable, which is why most new vineyards and wine regions begin by planting Chardonnay.
Chardonnay is described as neutral and “malleable,” meaning that its flavors and texture reflect the terroir where it is grown and the style of the individual winemaker. There is a very clear difference, for example, between the delicately mineral tastes of the classic Chardonnays from the Côtes de Beaune in Burgundy and the powerfully, oaky and fruit-forward flavors of the Chardonnays from Australia. Chardonnays grown elsewhere in the world usually try to imitate either the big Australian-style or the more traditional and delicate Burgundy-style.
Chardonnay takes oak well, and many higher-priced Chardonnays are typically fermented and aged in oak barrels. When Chardonnay is aged in oak barrels, it may pick up vanilla overtones in its aromas and flavor. Chardonnay is also the dominant grape in the best of the world’s sparkling wines. Champagne in France, and some Cava in Spain, are made from a blend of Chardonnay with Pinot Noir.
Chardonnay also ages well in the bottle, though it will not age as long as Riesling or many red wines. It likes slightly cooler climates (warm days/cool nights), and develops less acidity than Sauvignon Blanc. Some producers put their Chardonnay (or some of it) through malolactic fermentation, which reduces crispness and brings out a rich, buttery taste. This usually shortens the life of the wine as far as aging is concerned. Chardonnay matches very well with chicken and with dishes that are served with a lot of butter or a cream sauce. Unlike Sauvignon Blanc or Riesling, most Chardonnays lack the acid to pair well with seafood.
The sudden worldwide popularity of Chardonnay, starting in the 1980s, especially among the “Bridget Jones’” generation of the 1990s, has led to a backlash called the “ABC movement:”Anything But Chardonnay. Nevertheless, Chardonnay remains one of the world’s most widely-planted grape varieties.
It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that anywhere in the world that people gather for wine and cheese, Chardonnay is always to be found. In the same way, like Dickens and Cabernet Sauvignon, Jane Austen and Chardonnay have a universal appeal. On the surface, her novels portray the prim gentility of English country life, but the careful reader soon sees the archly humorous and even passionate currents that roil beneath. The original Chardonnays from the limestone vineyards of Burgundy were noted for their acidic edge, but
the more recent versions from Australia and California show a softer and more accessible body. Like the oaky and buttery Chardonnays of California, recent costume dramas from the BBC and Hollywood have made straitlaced Jane every girl’s bff.
Chasselas: A white wine grape, mostly grown in Switzerland in the Canton of Vaud but also in the Loire valley of France where it is blended with Sauvignon Blanc to produce a wine known as Pouilly-sur-Loire, after the village where it is grown. Chasselas is a full-bodied, dry wine, fruity with a silky texture. An especially delicious example of Chasselas is served on the SBB Swiss Train service, and one of life’s finer pleasures is sipping a glass from a chilled bottle of Aigles les Murailles while watching the Alps slowly drift past the carriage window.
Chenin Blanc (Rabelais): Chenin Blanc is a white grape that is commonly grown in the middle Loire Valley of France. It is also cultivated in South Africa and California. It makes white wines that are fragrant and high in acid. Chenin Blanc can make wines that range in style, from dry to very sweet, depending on decisions made by the individual winemaker subject to the specific conditions of the season. The town of Vouvray, in Touraine on the Loire, for example, is famous for sweet, dry and sparkling versions of Chenin Blanc. Because of the high acidity in wines made from Chenin Blanc, they tend to age very well. In Saumur, also on the Loire, Chenin Blanc is used to make sparkling wines of notable quality. Between Saumur and Vouvray lies the historic town of Chinon, whose wines were immortalized by Rabelais, the fifteenth century writer, humanist, physician, and philosopher. His writings, most notably Gargantua and Pantagruel, are wild, bawdy, and drunken fantasies filled with fornicating friars and naughty nuns, but all of whom swear by the healing powers of the Chenin Blanc wines from the vineyards of Chinon. Just as the Chenin Blanc wine can be extremely dry or extremely sweet, so too the writings of Rabelais range from the most lewd and vulgar to the most profound, and he is regarded as one of the fathers of modern European literature.
The Booklovers' Guide to Wine Page 26