Blends Are About To Take Over

Archive

LA Wine Fest 2012

by Adam Haggerty

 

 

 

 

When you ask red wine drinkers what their favorite varietal is, you typically get two answers. The first being Cabernet and the second being Pinot Noir. And because of a movie named Sideways, you almost never hear Merlot anymore. All three styles are magnificent in their own way and have made the folks up in Northern California a lot of money. A lot. But there is a group of winemakers about five hours south that are carving their names into the wine world’s barrel. They’re title is almost out of a Marvel comic movie. They are the Rhone Rangers.


Wine blends are certainly not new, in fact, ask a French or Italian man, and well, he’ll probably just laugh at you and maybe invade your personal space. You have your Bordeaux, Super Tuscan and Meritage, all of which use Cabernet, Cab Franc, Merlot, Petit Verdot and Malbec. You may find other grapes thrown in, but these five are the essential. Now the winemakers in the Central Coast of California are blending together their own style of juice. Now they didn’t invent this style, but they’re doing a great job of making it famous. The blend style slowly making headlines is the GSM blend, which is Grenache, Syrah and Mourvedre.

 

 

 


There’s no set percentage to how the GSM blend may come. In fact, in a given blend, there may be a lot more syrah than the other two. For example, 63% Syrah, 25% Grenache, 12% Mourvedre. Or you could find the complete opposite, with Grenache leading the way. With this type of blending, you can find flavor profiles uniquely all over the place, from strawberry and velvety tannins to sweet tobacco and black fruit. In most cases, the finish tends to linger beautifully and leave a nice “I’ve been drinking wine” coating on your teeth.


Now I’m not going to lie to you, trying to find a Paso Robles/Central Coast GSM blend can be tough. Many liquor shops carry just your typical wines. And your high end wine shops carry them but in very small sections. This is mostly because of what I said above and because wineries like Booker, Saxum, Linne Calado and Torrin’s case production is quite small. But oh wow, when you find and taste one, you’ll be on wine cloud nine and wish you’d tasted a GSM earlier.


So there’s your assignment, get out there and try a nice life changing blend. I guarantee you’ll look back at your life and wonder “what was I doing”. Maybe? A little bit? Happy tasting and enjoy.

 

 

 

 

Adam Haggerty

 

 

 

 

LOS ANGELES HAPPY HOURS


 

 

- LA's Premiere Happy Hour Search Site Featuring Over 1,000 Happy Hours Within 50 Cities in Los Angeles County

 

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...