Wine labels and wine reviews may include various references to wine blending. Some are specific and informative. Others are distinctions without a difference. Let’s explore the most common blending terms.
• Blend. Broadest term. It includes combining various fruits or vinifications to create, develop, or enhance a wine using more than one grape variety and/or vintage. It includes growing and fermenting different varieties together, blending grapes immediately after or years after harvest, combining various vintages, combining wines fermented using different yeast clones, fermenting techniques, and aging regimens.
• Field blend. Mixture of varieties that are grown, harvested, and fermented together.
• Non-vintage. Involves blending grapes from different years. This is designed to reduce vagaries of different vintages to produce wine true to a distinct house style, ensuring consumers they will enjoy a consistent experience. Non-vintage is very common in Champagnes, Porto, and sherry. It can include blending of different varieties, but also a single variety from different vintages.
• Assemblage. Blending of vinified wines before bottling. This term often is used in Bordeaux and Champagne. Term may have been coined by 17th-century monk-winemaker Dom Pérignon.
• Marriage. Synonym for assemblage. A combination of wines blended before bottling.
• Meritage. Portmanteau created to designate high-quality American wines that pay homage to Bordeaux blends. It combines “merit” and “heritage” and rhymes with “heritage.” It is not a French word with the pronunciation of the last syllable sounding like “garage.” Red meritage must be a blend of at least two varieties—cabernet sauvignon, merlot, cabernet franc, malbec, petit verdot, St. Macaire, gros verdot, or carmenère. White meritage must be a blend of at least two varieties—sauvignon blanc, sémillon, or muscadelle du Bordelais. American winemakers must follow strict guidelines to use the term.
• Cuvée. All-purpose term with no regulated definition. A cuvée is wine made from a blend of different grapes, vineyards, or vintages. Basically, another word for blend.
• Coupage. Another synonym for assemblage, except can have a negative connotation when it describes a wine were other wines were added just to increase the quantity of the wine.
Tasting notes
• M. Chapoutier Belleruche Côts-du-Rhône Blanc 2022: Vibrant, fresh blend led by grenache blanc, also roussanne, viognier, clairette, bourboulenc. $14-18 Link to my review
• Carpineto Chianti Classico Riserva DOCG 2019: Field blend of at least 80% sangiovese; some canailo and other red grape varieties. $25-29 Link to my review
• Flat Creek Estate Buttero Red Wine Blend 2018: Blend of sangiovese, primitivo, montepulciano from Texas winery. $35-48 Link to my review
• Syncline Wine Cuvée Elena, Columbia Valley 2021: Classic Rhône blend of syrah, grenache, and mourvèdre. Sophisticated and approachable. $65 Link to my review
Last round: Wine flies when you’re having fun.