Red blends. Everything old is new again.

Readers of my St. Louis Post-Dispatch column often ask me how I go about planning my column. To be honest, sometimes I have a plan and sometimes I just walk into a store and find something that strikes my fancy. And sometimes it’s a little of both. For example, I recently had in mind to visit Starrs in Richmond Heights to get a Spanish red from Montsant that the store had been advertising for a good price.

 

But John Nash, one of my local wine gurus, was running an in-store tasting that day and he convinced me to try the Ca’Momi 2012 Rosso DiNapa from Napa Valley. It was only $9.99, which is pretty unusual for a red from the prestigious Napa Valley. I totally changed my mind about the focus of my column after tasting that wine. This turned out to be one of those true “wine finds,” which for me is a budget wine that is truly yummy.

 

Although this wine is still pretty young with a 2012 vintage, the tannins are very soft and it’s ready to drink right now. A blend of cabernet sauvignon, merlot and zinfandel, this is a juicy wine packed with strawberry and raspberry flavor.  It also has a really nice velvety texture. And because it has good acidity it would go with a variety of foods including pasta with tomato sauce and burgers.

 

The label doesn’t really tell you much about the wine…just basically that it’s a red from Napa Valley. I had to find the varietals by going to the winery’s website. It made me think of how red wine blends are considered a hot category in the United States.  In fact, industry organizations that track sales have created a category for blends as if these wines are a new phenomenon. And supermarkets and other retailers have created special sections within the wine departments dedicated to blends.

 

It’s really a marketing triumph as wineries have found a way to capture the attention of an audience that’s always looking for something new, especially at affordable prices.  It’s just kind of funny, because there’s really nothing new about it. It’s just that U.S. and many other New World wineries have traditionally labeled wines by varietals in contrast to the European way of identifying wines by where they were produced. For example, a French wine with a Bordeaux label might not have any information about the grapes used in the wine. However, these wines are usually blends of specific varietals.

 

But even in the United States, a wine labeled by its varietal, can contain other grapes. Under federal law, wines using varietal names must derive at least 75 percent of their volume from the grape designated. While many wineries voluntarily list the proportions of the grape varieties that comprise their wine blends, they are not required to do so. That means if you buy a wine labeled Cabernet Sauvignon, as much as 25 percent of that wine can be made from other grapes.

 

Now we’re seeing an increasing number of U.S. wineries labeling wines simply as reds or whites. Folie a Deux Winery, which makes the extremely popular red, white and rosé blends under the Ménage à Trois label,  has been doing this for quite a while with a great amount of success. Now others have been catching on. And it’s not just in the United States…it’s wineries from other New World wine growing regions too. Just check out all those malbec blends from Argentina.

 

According to data from Chicago-based market research group IRI, red blend wine sales grew by nearly 20 percent in the 12 months ended in February 2014. The company tracks sales in liquor, grocery, drug and convenience stores. Red blends in the $8 to $10.99 segment were exceptionally strong during this period, growing to nearly $300 million. Sales of red blends priced higher than $20 also rose.

 

So hats off to the marketers for giving us something new --- that’s really old – to love.
#wine #redblends #napavalley