The world of Red wines
- Anjou Rouge: from France it is best in a warm year.
- Barbera: from northern Italy. Most are best young.
- Dolcetto: from northern Italy: Cherryish with a bittersweet
bite.
- Fitou: from France. Made from several grape varieties.
- Grenache: grown in Spain, southern France, Australia and the
USA. Usually best quite young.
- Jumilla: from south-east Sapin, made from the Monastrell grape.
- Montepulciano d'Abruzzo: made from the Montepulciano grape in
the Abruzzi.
- Nebbiolo: the finest red grape of northern Italy.
- Pinotage: from South africa. Juicy, fruity flavour.
- Rosso Conero: sturdy red based on the Monteplciano grape, made
in the eastern part of Italy.
- Toro: Beefy red from Tempranillo grape in Spain.
- Valdepenas: fairly soft Spanish red.
- Valpolicella: made from several different grape varieties, and
grown in the Veneto.
- Zinfandel: from California. Varies from light and fruity to
quite rich and gutsy.
Rose
Rose wine is simply pink wine; and it's a halfway house between red
and white in flavour as well as colour. In terms of taste it has a
combination of the roundness and berryish fruit of a red wine, but the
lightness and freshness of a white.
Best Roses come from:
- Portugal
- Spain
- South of France
Grape names you might see on rose labels:
- Syrah
- Cabernet
- Pinot Noir
- Grenache
- Cinsault
- Zinfandel
Port
Port wine is so called because it is nearly always shipped from the
Portuguese city called Oporto, located at the mouth of the river Douro.
Briefly, it is a fortified wine which can be red, white or tawny.
Most are sweet, though some have a dry edge to them.
There are, however, several different styles of port, and since they
taste different it's as well to be aware of them.
- Vintage port is wine of a single year, bottled young and able to
age in bottle.
- Tawny port can be inexpensive branded wine usually given a name
that it is extremely old and rare.
Late-bottled vintage port is a wine of a single year. It's sold when
it's ready to drink.
- Vintage character is a non vintage port which is matured in the
bottle.
- White port is drunk as an aperitif.
- There are some port-style wines produced in other countries such
as California and Australia.
Sherry
Sherry is another fortified wine, but is nothing like port.
Different styles of Sherry:
- Fino: this should be bone dry. It's the lightest, most delicate
sort of sherry and should always be drunk chilled.
- Manzanilla: this sherry is an increasingly popular type of fino.
- Amontillado: commercial ones sold abroad are medium-sweet; those
in Spain are bone dry.
- Oloroso: these sherries are aged in the producers' cellars for
longer period of time.
- Cream sherry: these are usually sweetened olorosos of middling
quality.
- Pale cream sherry: sweetened fino.
Madeira
It is probably the strangest fortified wine of all. It is made in the
usual way and fortified with brandy, but it is heated gently for weeks
or been years.
These wines come from the island of Madeira, which belongs to
Portugal, but is nearer to Africa than it is Europe. It was first
noticed that heat improved these wines a few hundred years ago. Of the
different styles of Madeira, Sercial is the dryest. Verdelho is off-dry,
Bual is sweet and Malmsey is very sweet.
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