Mix Your Own Wine?
Are you Serious?
By David Ehrenfried
One of my sons recently suggested that I write a column about blending one’s own wine — not so much about literally making wine from different kinds of grapes as mixing various bottled wines. My reaction had the know-it-all-parent ring of “Seriously?” His sensible counter was sort of, “Yes. Why not discuss blending various store-bought wines to see if the results might be something better than the original wines? Wouldn’t it be cool if a random mixture of different wines turned out to be tastier than each did separately?” I recoiled. Why on earth waste time and probably a lot of wine trying to do the hard work professional winemakers have already done for us?
In hindsight, I’m embarrassed by my stodgy response to what’s honestly a very interesting topic. My kids are all smart, if I do say so myself, and nearly always well-meaning. So, after giving the subject more thought and doing some research, it occurred to me that consumers blending their own wines is not so far-fetched. Realistically, the odds are probably not so good that many of us, as wine consumers, can truly improve either a really good or really bad wine, or any wine in between, by mixing it with one or more other wines. But maybe that’s not the main point. Experimenting with, or just talking about, mixing wine in this way is a valid, if not fun, way to gain an appreciation for how enormously important blending is to making wine and for how much craft, skill, knowledge, and experience are involved in doing it successfully.
Wine Blending: More Usual Than Exception
Most wines we buy as consumers at stores, bars, restaurants, and elsewhere are blends of one sort or another. Among these are many of the best and most celebrated wines ever made. For example, nearly all French Bordeaux wines, including the most famous and outrageously expensive ones, are blends of two or more different grape varietals. Sparkling Champagne wines are mostly blends, not only of different grape varietals but also of different vintages. Even single-varietal wines, such as those labeled Pinot Noir or Chardonnay, are usually carefully made blends of grapes from different vineyards or specific sites within a single vineyard. Portuguese wines, including its famous Ports, are typically blends of multiple varietals, of which Portugal has dozens and dozens. And, if you check wine labels or their winemakers’ or distributors’ websites closely, many of the wines most of us might think are made from one kind of grape are not actually. For instance, wines labeled “Cabernet Sauvignon” from California’s Napa Valley often contain up to 25% merlot, Petite Verdot, Cabernet Franc, or other varietals. There are many reasons for this. Cabernet Sauvignon by itself often produces wines, especially when young, with an overabundance of certain fruit flavors, harsh tannins, and other characteristics. They may simultaneously lack the smoothness, easy, ready-to-drink approachability, balance, and other friendly characteristics popular with many consumers. Careful blending with other varietals is often done to subdue undesirable features or enhance others. Another reason is that Cabernet Sauvignon grapes, especially those grown in Napa County, are expensive. Consequently, blending with wines made from less expensive varietals can reduce a wine’s cost while also improving its flavor and other characteristics. Under California law, a wine may be named for a specific grape only if that varietal comprises 75% or more of the contents. And so it goes for many other wines and wine regions around the world.
Wine regions around the world have naming restrictions to protect both winemakers and consumers. These not only limit when a wine can be named for a specific grape but also when it can be named for a specific place or region, such as Sancerre, Rioja, or Chianti, or when it can be said to emanate from a specific vintage. Such restrictions may seem to institutionalize a certain amount of deception by winemakers. However, their principal purposes are quite the opposite. First, they help maintain consumer confidence that wines are made to the specifications stated on their labels. But just as significantly, they recognize the importance of blending to make unique, consistently tasty wine across every price category.
Blending is central to the art and craft of winemaking. It’s a skill that requires great knowledge, talent, training, and experience to learn and perfect. Whether the objective is to produce cheap or extravagantly expensive wines, winemakers need to figure out how best to work with the specific grapes and other resources available to them, within the rules that apply. Economics plays a role, of course, as winemakers balance their desire to make quality wine with the realities of production costs and the prices they can charge distributors and consumers. Winemaker cleverness and ingenuity are also important.
I recently read a story on Wine Spectator Magazine’s website featuring Dave Edmonds, the chief winemaker of New Zealand’s Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc. He oversees the yearly production of nearly a million-and-a-half cases of this very popular, highly rated, budget-conscious wine. Edmonds sources grapes from many vineyards in multiple New Zealand regions. The grapes have somewhat different fruit and other characteristics from place to place, and their precise quantities and quality can’t be predicted from year to year. Edmonds and his team subsequently change the blends to optimize quality and affordability. As a result, their Sauvignon Blanc wines’ flavors change. Blends, whether for single-varietal or multi-variety wines, don’t need to be static or taste precisely the same from year to year.
Mixing Your Own Wine
So, let’s say you, ideally with some friends, want to try mixing wines together. How might you do that? You could do it at home, or you could find a wine club, wine bar, winery, or wine distributor that might organize a “mixing” for you. The mixing could be just for fun or set up as a contest to see who concocts the tastiest blend. You’ll need three or more different wines with different flavor profiles. They could be all reds, whites, or some of each. You’ll need plenty of wine glasses, water glasses, and bowls for spitting out or discarding wine. (Absolutely, don’t feel compelled to swallow all the wine you taste. You could become tipsy or worse after drinking 10 or more ounces, the equivalent of two standard wine servings or roughly 40% of a standard bottle.)
Other things you’ll need are some measuring spoons. Also important are paper and pencils to document and remind yourselves of the profile of each wine you’ve picked, as well as the composition, characteristics, and impressions of each wine mixture you make. Finally, if you’re doing this exercise alone or with only a few people, you might use a Coravin to pour just the right amount of wine from each bottle rather than opening them all. The Coravin is a device that uses a long, hypodermic-like needle and pressurized argon gas to draw wine from a corked bottle without removing its cork. It replaces the removed wine with argon to prevent the remaining wine in the bottle from oxidizing. You’ll then be able to enjoy the wine again weeks, months, or even years later.
Possible wine combinations are endless. If you were mixing reds, for instance, one wine might be full-bodied, with lots of strong fruit flavors, very noticeable tannins, and 14%+ alcohol by volume. Another might be medium-bodied, with nice fruit and herbal flavors, lower tannins, less alcohol, and a smooth texture. Another might be even lighter in weight, color, and other respects. You might, for example, pick Mourvèdre, Syrah, and Grenache, and mix your very own GSM wine. Or you might consider selecting a Chianti Classico, a Cabernet Sauvignon, and a Merlot to make a Super Tuscan-style blend. If you were mixing whites, you might pick Chardonnay, Chenin Blanc, Sauvignon Blanc, or Albariño. White wines are often added in small amounts to red blends to lighten color, weight, or alcohol slightly or to add acidity or sweetness.
If you want to get a good idea of how to conduct a wine mixing, I recommend watching a video demonstration by the lively wine educator and sommelier, Madeline Puckette. Puckette is the author of the excellent book, Wine Folly. She also has a very informative website by the same name, where you can find her video, “Can you make your own wine blend?”
Mixing your own wine may seem like a wacky thing to do, given the countless and delicious wine blends winemakers have already made for us. But it’s a fun project nonetheless, even if we’re not very interested in making wine, to learn about wine and what makes each one so unique and likable, or not. Who knows, maybe you or your friends will create one of the best wines you’ve ever tasted.