Why do so many wines taste so different and why do so many taste the same?

Monday, 8 August, 2022
Forbes, John Mariani
Wines taste different for two reasons. First, the wine grape itself, and second, where the grapes are grown.

You hear reports now and then about how many people can’t tell the difference between a red wine and a white wine if tasted blind, much less one red or white wine from another. This is no cause for being smug for the simple reason that all wines are nothing but fermented grape juice, and a great number of white wines are made from red grapes.

The fact is that wine experts make mistakes all the time about what they’re tasting, including Harry Waugh, a legendary British connoisseur who, when asked when was the last time he’d mistaken a Bordeaux for a Burgundy, responded, “What time was lunch?” Which is one of the reasons American wine critic Robert Parker refused ever to taste wines blind. The prospects of committing a whopper of an error are huge.

Still, those who labor intensely, sometimes for years, and often fail exams as often as would-be lawyers to become an officially designated Master of Wine (there are only 418 in the world) have developed exceptional ability to distinguish one wine from another, one region from another, even one vintage from another. If you think that is a worthwhile pursuit—those who do so go to work in the wine trade—prepare to spend most of your free time and a great deal of your money on achieving that prestigious title.

For the rest of us, distinguishing one wine from another is helpful in choosing which bottle goes with whatever it is you’re eating, or to have a little fun: Once, when a sommelier challenged me to try to identify a wine he poured (with the bottle far removed from my sight), I played along. When he went to another part of the room, I called over a busboy, gave him five bucks and asked him to tell me what the wine label read. When the sommelier returned, I hemmed and hawed and mumbled remarks like, “It seems to be from a higher elevation, but definitely not California.” I then shrugged and told the sommelier exactly what wine it was, including the vintage. His astonishment was palpable.

Let’s get basic here: Wines taste different for two reasons. First, the wine grape itself, of which there are 10,000, and second, where the grapes are grown. There’s little question that most people with just the slightest familiarity with wine can tell the difference between, say, a Chardonnay and a Gewürztraminer or a Riesling, because they have very different flavor profiles. So, too, Cabernet Sauvignon tastes quite different from a Syrah or a Zinfandel.

The onion gets sliced more thinly when it comes to differentiating between a Chardonnay and a Pinot Blanc or a Cabernet Sauvignon and a Cabernet Franc. And it would be something of a feat for most serious wine drinkers to bet their souls on telling the difference between a Barolo and a Barbaresco, both made in Italy’s Piedmont from the Nebbiolo grape. All these grapes are in the so-called vinifera family; grapes like the Native America labrusca variety taste very different.

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