Today I’d like to talk about blending. When does it take place during the wine making process, before or after fermentation and why?
First of all I’ll just talk about blending. Statistically I can’t tell you this but I’m going to guess. The majority of all wines and wine shelves are a blend of some sort. Blending is the right of the wine maker to help create the wine that he or she wants to create. Certain wines provide certain characteristics and by blending wines you can counteract for example Bordeaux the tannins, the rigidity of Cabernet Sauvignon, fleshiness and fruitiness of Merlot. So it happens as part of the art, and like I said virtually every wine out there is some blend. Even if it says Cabernet on the bottle it does not mean that it is 100% Cabernet in the bottle so you should always look at the back if you’re curious about is in fact in the bottle.
So it’s just very common in say; Bordeaux wine for example and to be honest; it is probably more common in red than whites, but almost every wine is blended. Champagne is also blended, like I said many red wines are blended I would say the exception probably occurs in Burgundy where if it says Chardonnay, it’s Chardonnay, if it’s red it’s Pinot Noir. Elsewhere in the world it’s going to be some blend. Blending can occur at any point in the development of grapes, grape growing, harvesting, fermentation, or thereafter. Some makers like to mix grapes and press them together and ferment them together. The more common way is to blend wine juice or wine, with other wines before and even after the barrel and or the bottle. It’s just a preference of the wine maker.
It happens in virtually every bottle of wine you drink. It’s some blend of something white and red and throughout the world it exists of course in some parts of the world there are restrictions about what grapes you can use so you can learn about that by doing a little research, studying various villages and regions and learning more about the guidelines of regional association might have in terms of what a producer can or cannot put in the bottle.
That’s it for today, if you think I’ve missed anything or would like to agree or disagree, please let me know in the comments below.
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