Wines Worth Discovering
By David Ehrenfried
If you’ve shopped for California red wine in a wine store or local supermarket, you may have noticed some bottles labeled “Red Blend,” “Red Wine,” “Meritage,” or just “Red.” Maybe you’ve purchased one or more of these in the past or tried some at a bar or restaurant. Many of these wines have intriguing or humorous names like “The Prisoner,” “Ménage à Trois,” “Apothic Red,” “Sexy Wine Bomb,” “Troublemaker,” and “Purple Cowboy Tenacious Red.” (The Purple Cowboy handle, in case you’re wondering, alludes to a story about winemaker rodeo fans who tasted so much red wine their teeth turned purple.) Clever or catchy brand names and graphics are lures to catch our eyes and get us to buy and remember these wines. But they also serve another important purpose.
These blends don’t contain enough of any single grape’s wine to be labeled as that specific type, such as “cabernet sauvignon” or “zinfandel.” In California, as well as most wine regions worldwide, a wine usually can be labeled for a specific grape only if 75% or more of the wine is made from that grape. California red wines that don’t meet this requirement must differentiate themselves in other ways. The “Red Blend” tag line alone doesn’t have nearly as much marketing cache as clever handles
If all this makes you doubt the quality of red blends, don’t. Many red blends are very fine and enjoyable wines, and they’re often quite reasonably priced as well. In addition, they’ll usually pair nicely with foods you’d expect them to, and some are refreshing chilled a bit. I wouldn’t be concerned that red blends might seem like less costly substitutes for more expensive California red wines, like those labeled cabernet sauvignon or merlot. Some are, of course, but mostly they’re simply blends like so many other wines produced around the world. Will your friends or family think you’re cheap if you order, bring, or serve a bottle labeled “red blend” for a nice dinner? My opinion is that if the wine tastes good, people likely won’t care or be disappointed, and they might even be impressed and compliment your choice.
Recently I picked up four popular, widely available California red blends to try for myself. They cost in the $10-$25 range. There were many others to choose from in that range. And of course, there were pricier and more acclaimed California red blends, too, but I consider them to be more special occasion wines than wines most of us might buy to enjoy casually.
For the most part, I liked the four wines I tasted (see my tasting notes below). They were medium to full-bodied, with modest alcohol content (13.5% to 14.5% ABV). They weren’t lush, robustly powerful, or otherworldly wines, which I wouldn’t expect in this price range. For the money, though, they were each tasty, smooth, full of inviting fruit aromas and juicy red and dark fruit flavors — all things wine lovers expect in good, modestly priced red wine. They weren’t complicated or highly nuanced wines — some might describe them as being one dimensional. Yet most were carefully balanced, made to enjoy now without any expectation they might improve with age. None were overly tannic or acidic, although I found one too sweet for my taste. The focus of these wines seemed to be more on delivering pleasant fruit and texture than on earthy, herbal, tobacco, or other subtleties.
Wine Blend Basics
Making wine from combinations of different kinds of grapes is probably as old as winemaking itself, which dates back at least 10,000 years. Imagine a curious prehistoric winemaker mixing a fermented beverage made from one kind of wild grape with a similar beverage made from another kind and then experimenting with the proportions of each to find the blend that tasted best. What fun that might have been!
There are basically two ways to make wine blends. Mostly, winemakers ferment each kind of grape separately and then mix the resulting wines. This process best enables winemakers to carefully calibrate their blends to achieve specific flavor profiles as well as to control consistency and quality. The other method is to crush and ferment different varietals together. This can be very efficient for smaller bottlings but less practical for large ones. It’s harder to achieve consistent blends from one batch of mixed grapes to the next or to adjust flavors and other characteristics after fermentation.
Regardless of the method, blending has long been an essential aspect of winemaking, so much so that many and possibly most of the world’s greatest wines are blends of two or more different grapes. Perhaps the most famous blended wines are Bordeaux, named for the city and region in western France where these wines are made. Nearly all Bordeaux wines, whether red or white, are blends. This includes well-known and ridiculously expensive red wine ikons like Chateau Lafitte Rothschild and Chateau Latour and even the region’s famous sweet dessert wines sauternes and barsac.
Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon are the most widely planted Bordeaux varietals. However, very few Bordeaux wines are made exclusively from these grapes. Most are blends that include one or both of these varietals along with several others, most notably cabernet franc, petit verdot, and malbec. Each contributes specific properties to a blend, such as particular flavors, scents, colors, tannin, alcohol content, minerality, and texture. As a result, each producer’s blends, which might vary from year to year, help to give Bordeaux wines an immense range of unique tastes and character, helping to fulfill their legacy as among the world’s best and most intriguing wines in any price range. It’s a small wonder that Bordeaux style blends are relied on in many other wine regions, most notably California, Washington State, Australia, Chile, Argentina, and parts of Spain and Italy. One the wines I tasted for this column is a traditional Bordeaux style blend, while the others relied more on zinfandel and syrah.
Other prominent examples of red blends include most of the wines of France’s Southern Rhone region (mixes made from syrah, grenache, mourvèdre, carignan, and other grapes), of Spain’s Priorat region (typically syrah, grenache, and cabernet sauvignon), Spain’s Ribera del Douro region (tempranillo, cabernet sauvignon, merlot, and malbec), Italy’s Supertuscans (cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, merlot, and sangiovese), and both Port and most red table wines from Portugal’s Douro River Valley (touriga nacional, tempranillo, and touriga franca, among other varietials).
Some wines, of course, are seldom blends, such as those made with pinot noir, chardonnay, nebbiolo, and riesling, among some others. However, even many of the wines that we might think are made from a single grape varietal are often blends. California wines labeled cabernet sauvignon, often have modest percentages of petit verdot, cabernet franc, and other grapes like Bordeaux red wines. This information is sometimes on the wine’s front or back label. If not, you can usually locate this information on the winemaker’s or distributor’s website.
While taste, texture, color, and overall enjoyment are the first considerations for blending, there are important practical and economic reasons, as well. Grapes are like other crops. They have good and not-so-good years, so being able to substitute grapes or modify blends is important. Blending also is frequently done to stretch the production of wine made with costly grapes by blending it with wine made from less expensive but complementary grapes. The result can be wines of comparable, if not better quality, at less cost to producers and lower prices to consumers.
California Red Blend Tasting Notes
2019, The Pairing Red, Santa Ynez Valley ($23-$28, 14.5% ABV). A delicious, very pleasant well-put-together wine in a Bordeaux style with cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, merlot, and petit verdot. Medium-bodied. Lots of forward dark berry fruit with mild tannins and perky acidity. My favorite.
2021 Conundrum Red Blend, Wagner Family of Wines ($20-$30, 14.4% ABV). Tasty, instantly approachable blend of Zinfandel given added zip and depth by adding cabernet sauvignon and petite sirah. There’s plenty of cherry and dark berry fruit, some oak, and nice spice. Good chilled. Not Caymus but you at least four bottles of this for the price of one of those Wagner cabs.
2022 Decoy Red Blend, Duckhorn Vineyards ($18-$25, 14.1% ABV). A lighter red blend, uniquely half cabernet sauvignon and merlot, and the other half five other grapes. One dimensional with pure beams of tasty fresh black and red berry fruit aromas and flavors. Velvety with some oak. A good bar or party wine.
Mánage à Trois Red Blend, Mánage à Trois Winery, St. Helena ($9-$15, 13.5% ABV). A light to medium bodied blend of Zinfandel, Merlot, and Cabernet Sauvignon. This wine drinks easy enough with lots of cherry-berry fruit. It was too sweet for my taste, though. Chilling helps. Worth a try for under ten bucks. My least favorite.