Wines as liquids in bottles on shelves among hundreds of other wines in similar looking bottles? No thank you! Kangaroo? What’s that? A bottle with a Footprint on it? How confusing.
STOP thinking of wine. START thinking of wine grapes.
But all grapes are, well, grapes, more or less, right?
Wrong.
Are all beans (Lima, Green, Pinto, Garbanzo, Bush & Pole, White, Black, Haricot (AKA Navy Beans), Kidney, …and even Coffee Beans) the same? Of course not. Once you go to the canned beans aisle of the supermarket you’re not confused by all the labels, because you know that each bean has its own flavor even if you don’t know what the name of the bean is that’s in it. You can look at a can of Chili and know it tastes different from Baked Beans for instance (Chili uses 3 to 5 different beans). Baked Beans, whether smoked or otherwise use Navy Beans (AKA Haricot).
And so it is with wines. The French, Italians and Germans are so good with wines (knowing what they taste like within their own countries) because their countries are small and (just oversimplifying a bit to make it less confusing) to those Europeans it’s just a question of “Those grapes over there” similar to the way we deal naturally with Oranges and Grapefruits being different if they’re from Florida or California (Florida’s Oranges are for juicing, California’s are for slicing – Mostly).
Wine connoisseurs abound who will gasp at this and tell you none of it applies, there’s no comparison, and stamp their feet demanding that “Wine” remain a secret mystery for the elite club. It isn’t. It’s been around for thousands of years. It’s a profession that deserves to be very well paid because it’s a precisely scientific and deeply cultural process, but people should know what is in wine is so they don’t drink crap. I’m sorry that there’s a limited supply of the best wines around, and I’m not out to drive the price up, but if the average person is willing to get a bit of an education and pay out $10, $20 or $40 for a bottle of limited supply wine then so be it. Next year go out and get yours earlier!
Neither this page nor this site can contain all of the information about every country and region in Europe (or the world) where wines are produced because this site is primarily about bartending, not wines or viticulture.
Almost every wine in Central America, North America and South America has its origins in some part of North Western Europe (France and Germany) down to South Western Europe (Italy, Portugal, Spain, Greece, Turkey). Pretty much all of the America’s most famous wines are “varietals” (remember that bean analogy? ok, well a varietal is a type of grape).
So in the Americas it is the Chardonnay grape which is used in Chardonnay wine, but because of the laws in the USA, it only has to be 51% Chardonnay grape as long as it is deemed to still taste predominantly like Chardonnay.
But what is Chardonnay?
Quick answer: All Chablis has the Chardonnay grape in it.
Long answer: Chardonnay is a grape which grows most successfully and produces the best white wines of the Burgundy region of France. Did you say Burgundy? But Burgundy is a red wine! Sure, Burgundy is a red wine, but that’s because red burgundy is made primarily using the Pino Noir grape (noir meaning black). The Chardonnay grape is a white grape.
There are various classifications of Chablis in France – Chablis Grand Cru, Petit Chablis, and Chablis (Names based upon place origin, think of them as farm county names, and generally where there are five counties, a crop of watermelons grows sweeter in one county than the other four, so that county winds up more famous – almost the same thing with grapes and wines).
Remember, all along here I’m talking about the FLAVOR the fermented variety of the grape produces (good wine grapes are not table grapes and are generally known to be terrible eating). There’s more than just grape flavor alone that makes a wine. The symbiosis of grape, soil, climate, vineyard placement, and the human touch, all rolled into one are what make individual wines slightly different from or better/worse than one another.
Chardonnay / Chablis is very dry, should be a pale straw yellow, should actually have a “gun flint” metallic sharp tangy taste known as a “pierre-a-fusil” taste. Generally (as with most whites) it’s best drunk when at two years old or under and, in the case of Chardonnay, it goes exceptionally well with oysters.
By the way, the Chardonnay grape is one of the three permitted grapes allowed to be used in creating real (French) Champagne, the other two grapes permitted are Pinot Noir (that black grape which has its skin peeled off before it can turn the fermenting must red), and the Pinot Meunier grape varietal.
Most Champagnes are blends of three grapes: Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier and Chardonnay. That said, “Blanc de Blancs” are made solely of Chardonnay, and Blanc de Blancs Champagnes are the finest and most delicate of them all.
D. Jonathan
David Curtis – About the Author:
With over 30 years since his start in the food & beverage hospitality industry David Curtis has written wine and beer menus since 1995. His first wine list was critically reviewed by Ruth Reichl, NY Times Wine and Food Restaurant Critic, page 3 of the review: “Wine list is well chosen…”
Site Author, David Jonathan Curtis: David Jonathan Curtis, a seasoned professional in his fifth decade of bartending and bar management, began his career in Midtown Manhattan, NY, tending and managing bars before diving into Manhattan’s bustling nightlife scene. Over the years, he has mastered high-volume, high-pressure bartending as the lead bartender in both iconic Midtown clubs and Wall Street bars, generating over $1,350,000.00 annually in personal drink sales. He has since extended his expertise to establishments in Georgia and now Tampa, Florida. David’s roles as a Bartending Instructor at the American Bartending School in Tampa, while maintaining a second job bartending, and his years experience of managing bars, and working as a Brand Ambassador along with his extensive professional library of over 1,000 bartending books, highlight his dedication to continually refining his craft. He holds a diploma in Bar Management and is BarSmarts certified by Pernod Ricard.
