CARDOZA: Reading Wine Labels 101
Wine labels can be hard to read, especially when you’re new to wine, but there are a few helpful pieces of information that should be on any wine label.
While many wines, especially those marketed specifically to American consumers, are varietally labeled, much of the wine that is produced worldwide bears no explicit explanation of its varietal content. We could have a lengthy discussion about whether all winemakers should indicate the varietal content of their wines, but for the time being, it is not a universal requirement. Region of origin and alcohol content, however, are both required and can tell you a lot about what’s in the bottle.
The wine’s region of origin tells you the size of the area from which the grapes are sourced. As a general rule, the smaller the growing area, the more expensive the wine. Most American boxed wine, for example, will bear the appellation ‘California,’ meaning the grapes could have come from anywhere in the state. Some will even be labeled American red wine, meaning the grapes were sourced from multiple states. Conversely, you might see a wine labeled Stagecoach Vineyard, Napa Valley; this means at least 85 percent of the grapes came from one vineyard on the east side of the Napa Valley.
I’m not going to say there is an inherent link between small sourcing areas and wine quality, but it is a good rule of thumb to bear in mind. There are plenty of single-vineyard wines that weren?t that great, and I?ve had excellent wines from larger appellations like Tuscany, the Central Coast of California, and Washington?s Columbia Valley. In addition to the basic geography of it, if you’re familiar with the location a wine comes from, this gives you an idea of the climate in which the wine is grown and can thereby give you clues as to what type of wine is in the bottle. Red wine grown in warmer climates like Australia’s Barossa valley will tend to be more ripe and full-bodied than those grown in a cool climate like Oregon’s Willamette Valley.
The information about the wine?s origin works together with another piece of information that?s required on every wine label in the United States: alcohol content. Most wine grapes have an alcohol potential at harvest in the low teens but can push up to 16 percent or more, depending on how late the grapes are harvested. Sweet white wines, for example, will typically have lower alcohol, because their sweetness comes from the fermentation being stopped before all the sugar has been consumed by the yeast.
So if you’re looking at a bottle of Riesling and trying to figure out how sweet it is, look at the alcohol content. If it’s under 10 percent, a fair bit of residual sugar has been left behind. If it’s closer to 12 percent or so, chances are it’s pretty dry. Red wines will generally be left on the vine longer than whites, thus achieving higher alcohol, but there is a trade-off during that period of hang time: As the sugars continue to climb, the acidity begins to fall. With acidity being a key factor in how well a wine pairs with food, seeing alcohol at 15 percent or more on red wine often indicates a wine that is better suited to drinking on its own rather than with food.
Leil Cardoza is the Boise Co-op wine shop manager. Email: [email protected].
Bill & Sheila’s Wine
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