Bordeaux Step 2: Familiar Grapes, Old World Style

As I said in my earlier post on Bordeaux, if you are going to devote a chunk of your budget and storage space to Bordeaux wines, you have to know if you like them. Because the taste of Bordeaux wine changes from vintage to vintage and appellation to appellation, you also need to know that in general you like the grape varietals that go into making most Bordeaux wines.

Bordeaux wines are blended wines that are made from cabernet sauvignon, merlot, and cabernet franc (if red), and sauvignon blanc and semillon (if white). But there is often a huge difference between California and other New World expressions of these varietals, and those from the Old World. Though the varietals are familiar to us, they behave very differently when they are planted in different soils--distinctions that are known as terroir. When I was starting out I found Andrea Immer's (now Andrea Immer Robinson's) Great Wine Made Simple absolutely indispensable when trying to understand how these and other grapes behaved in different regions. Much of the information below is drawn from her "flavor maps." If you don't have this book on your wine reference shelf, you really should! And you can also check out Gary Vaynerchuk's discussion of this topic over at Wine Library TV.

After years of reading and tasting, I now think of these Old World/New World varietal flavor differences like a Venn-diagram, with a core of common flavors, flanked by expressions that come from terroir. Here's one of mine, with very low production values (I never could color in the lines). But you get the point. Below is a slightly more polished chart of Old World and New World characteristics for the varietals used in Bordeaux wines, with the common characteristics for each made bold.

	Merlot	Cabernet Sauvignon	Sauvignon Blanc	Semillon
Old World	Plum, vanilla- oak, roasted coffee, wet gravel, cocoa powder, pen ink	Blackcurrant, cassis, wet leaves, wet gravel, spice, vanilla, mocha, pencil lead	Grassy, herbaceous, vanilla	Honey, fig
New World	Jammy plum, blackberry, blueberry; prominent oak	Jammy blackberry, blackcurrant, cassis; sweet and spicy oak; mint or eucalyptus	Citrus, melon, peach, vanilla	Honey

So think hard about whether you would like the Old World expressions of these varietal flavors BEFORE you start madly buying Bordeaux. And, be sure that you eat the kind of hearty fare that will support the red wines, and enjoy sipping dessert wines, too.

Next week I'll be posting about the most challenging aspect of Bordeaux for most of us: storage. Stay tuned for shots of my closet, and some advice gathered from the experts.