Monday, September 22, 2014

What a vineyard tour teaches you about red and white wine and sparkling wines

I need to know about wines for my level one exam. So here's a recap to help me and you.

Blanc is white (in French). Noir is black. White and black grapes.

Blanc de blanc (on the bottle label) is white wine from white grapes only, chardonnay the white grape.

Much rarer is
Blanc de noir which is white wine made from a black skinned grape which nonetheless has a clear colour juice.

The most usual black skinned grape juice added for a mixed grape sparkling will be pinot noir.

Pinot grapes come in three well known varieties, pinot blanc (white), pinot gris (grey), and pinot noir (black).

What about pinot meunier added by Nyetimber to one of their blends?


It is known is 'm e u n i e r' for short, because there are several pinots but only one m e u n i e r. I have had to insert spaces because the spell checker keeps changing the word to meaner.

So there are several Pinots.

Most champagne is brut - the driest.

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