Red Grape Varietals

Front 1

"Cabernet Sauvignon"

Back 1

not fully ripe: herbaceousness, capsicum ripe: blackcurrant, very ripe: cassis Oak: vanilla, cedar, sandalwood, tobacco, coffee, musk and spicy notes

Front 2

"BARBERA"

Back 2

* plummy and cherryish
* undertones of sweet vanilla
The high-in-acid BARBERA grape of north-western Italy is a chameleon-like grape which changes considerably according to yield. As an everyday variety, it is a juicy glugger but it can metapmorphose into a concentrated, rich, plummy and cherryish wine with undertones of sweet vanilla and spice when aged in small new oak casks. In Argentina, it tends to the former style with a little less acidity thanks to plentiful Andean sunshine.

Front 3

"CABERNET FRANC"

Back 3

* grassy and raspberryish
* aroma of lead pencil shavings
CABERNET FRANC, the distant relative of CABERNET SAUVIGNON, can produce deliciously perfumed, supple, raspberry and blackcurrant-infused red wines in Bordeaux, while further north in the cooler regions of the Loire Valley and in north-eastern Italy, it produces a wine which tends to become more herbaceous in style. It is often described as having the aroma of pencil shavings

Front 4

"GAMAY"

Back 4

* bubblegum and banana
* cherry and strawberry flavours
GAMAY, the beaujolais grape, is the gluggiest of all grape varieties, partly because of the carbonic maceration or whole berry fementation method used, which helps preserves the naturally refreshing juiciness of the variety. Carbonic maceration is responsible for a variety of aromas and flavours ranging from bubblegum and banana through to strawberry and cherry.

Front 5

"GRENACHE"

Back 5

* white pepper and raspberry
* thyme and rosemary scents
The light-coloured GRENACHE is a quintessentially Mediterranean red variety and as a result it often mingles the classic Mediterranean garrigue scents of thyme, fennel and rosemary with white pepper and its warming, raspberryish fruit flavours. It tends to be low in tannin and hence soft and supple and, at its apogee in Châteauneuf-du-Pape, it takes on heady aromas and spicy, robust fruit flavours which can border on the raisined.

Front 6

"MALBEC"

Back 6

* mulberry and blackberry flavours
* tarry and leathery
Harsh and rustic in its homeland of south-west France, the MALBEC grape is often improved in Cahors by the addition of the softening MERLOT grape. It really comes into its own however in Argentina, where it becomes altogether smoother and lusher with all sorts of plummy, red berry and earthy fruit flavours like raspberry, mulberry and blackberry allied to tar, leather and game-like characters.

Front 7

"MERLOT"

Back 7

* bell pepper and blackcurrant
* chocolate and spice-like characters
MERLOT's soft texture helps to give it a deliciously plummy, almost fruitcake-like flavour and a mellow smoothness which makes it more approachable than its sister grape, the CABERNET SAUVIGNON. Like cabernet, it can be a little grassy and bell-pepper-like from cool climate regions and it develops blackcurrant, blackberry, blueberry, chocolate and spice-like characters when fully ripe. Chilean MERLOT often produces juicy reds with blackcurrant pastille flavours.

Front 8

"MOURVEDRE"

Back 8

* brambly and blackberry-like
* animal, funky and meaty
MOURVEDRE is a darker, thicker-skinned variety than its Mediterranean counterpart, GRENACHE, producing a firm-structured, often tannic, brambly, blackberryish red with notable funky, meaty and animal-like characters. More often than not it's blended with other southern French varieties. It can be spicy and as it ages, develop the aged meat character of game or even wet fur.

Front 9

"NEBBIOLO"

Back 9

* tar and roses
* brambly and blackberry-like
* animal, funky and meaty
* truffle and liquorice spiciness
Northern Italy's thick-skinned NEBBIOLO grape of barolo and barbaresco fame is one of the most delightfully aromatic of red grape varieties and for that reason sometimes compared to PINOT NOIR, but the aromas and flavours are very different. Structured by high acidity and no shortage of tannin, NEBBIOLO's bouquet encompasses violet, smoke and rose-like perfumes with flavours of truffle, fennel, liquorice and, most famously, tar.

Front 10

"PINOT NOIR"

Back 10

* raspberry and strawberry
* cola spice, incense and game
PINOT NOIR is one of the most sensuously fragrant red grapes in the world with a variety of scented aromas based on red berry characters closest to raspberry and strawberry, and often tinged with incense and cola-like (!) spice. It can be a little minty and vegetal but when ripe usually tastes of raspberry or strawberry as well as cherry and, when exotic, loganberry, mulberry and fraise du bois. If overripe, it becomes jammy. As it matures in bottle, it often develops silky textures and alluring undertones of truffles, game and leather.

Front 11

"PINOTAGE"

Back 11

* plummy and blackberryish
* hints of baked banana and burnt rubber
A difficult grape to grow and equally hard to make, PINOTAGE comes in a range of red wine styles from simple everyday glugger to the more serious structured reds. It is known for its characteristic burnt rubber character which most growers try to eliminate, and, when successful, produce a wine with a range of plum, cherry, blackberry and banana flavours. With oak cask maturation, it can become smoky and spicy.

Front 12

"SYRAH"

Back 12

* smoke and blackberry
* cool climate pepper and mint
SYRAH produces dark red wines whose purest incarnation in the northern Rhône produces a wine with memorable aromas which can be smoky, floral, peppery, minty or spicy and often linked to a kind of medicinal or creosote-like character. Cool climates, whether northern Rhône or Victoria and parts of Western Australia, bring out the mint, pepperiness and the spice in the SYRAH, while the warmer it gets the more it changes from raspberry to blackberry, becoming chocolatey and, with age, tarry and gamey.

Front 13

"TEMPRANILLO"

Back 13

* strawberry flavours
* a veneer of vanilla and tobacco-spice
The mainstay of Rioja and a host of other Spanish reds, TEMPRANILLO is a versatile grape which is equally well used to making juicy young strawberryish reds as well as more serious, oak-aged reds with a veneer of vanilla, liquorice and tobacco spice characters overlaying the strawberry flavours. Like SANGIOVESE, it can be very savoury, a quality often defined as tobacco leaf, and it becomes leathery with age.

Front 14

"ZINFANDEL"

Back 14

* brambly and raspberryish
* headily spicy
In its pink incarnation, ZINFANDEL, sometimes known as white ZINFANDEL, tends to be light, sweetish and bland. Take it seriously though and it produces powerfully-constructed, brambly, reds with raspberry and blackberry-like flavours and plenty of tannins and spice. It is believed to be the same grape, or virtually the same grape as southern Italy's primitivo, which is equally capable of producing heady, robustly spicy reds.

Front 15

"SANGIOVESE"

Back 15

* cherry and plum
* herby and savoury
SANGIOVESE, the main Chianti grape, produces a variety of styles from youthfully lively young reds with juicy, cherryish flavours with mouthwatering acidity to the richer, more concentrated, long-lived, oak-aged style with dark cherry, plum, savoury and herby, bayleafy flavours. Tinged with tea, and spices picked up from oak cask maturation, SANGIOVESE wines as they mature can develop gamey, leathery, almost animal characteristics.