What Is a Wine Blend

Definition: What Is a Wine Blend

At its most basic, vintners blend wine made from different grapes in order to add more complexity to the flavor and texture of a wine. The goal of blending wine made in different vintages is more to balance out the flavor characteristics.

Some wine blends are made from classic recipes handed down from generation to generation. Other vintners create brand new blends in an attempt to produce a new and exciting wine that has flavor characteristics like nothing else on the market.

Different Types of Blending

Now that the basic part of the question of "What is a wine blend" has been answered, let's move on to the more specific types of blending.

Vintage Wine Blends

Vintage wine blends are different grapes grown in the same vintage, or year. This type of blending is most common in Champagne.

Champagne Blends

In order for the Champagne house to put a vintage on the bottle of bubbly, the grapes must be harvested in the same year, therefore, making them from the same vintage. Common grapes blended to produce Champagne are:

• Chardonnay
• Pinot Noir
• Pinot Meunier

Champagne blends used from grapes that are harvested in different seasons are non-vintage Champagnes, denoted by the "N.V." on the label. If you've ever shopped for Champagne, you know that generally the non-vintage varieties are far less expensive than the vintage.

Red Wine Blends

The number of red wine blends on the market is vast, so just the major ones will be covered here, beginning with the Super Tuscans.

Super Tuscan Blends

Super Tuscans got their start in the 1970s when Italian wine makers decided to create a new an exciting red wine. Italy has strict wine blending laws according to the Denominazione di Origine Controlla e Garantita or DOCG. Producers of Super Tuscans decided to break the rules and make a new wine blended from grapes of their choosing such as:

• Cabernet Sauvignon
• Cabernet Franc
• Sangiovese
• Syrah
• Merlot
• Petite Verdot

As a result of these vitners' rogue wine blends, the DOCG stuck Super Tuscans in the lower class "table wine" category because they did not conform to DOCG regulations. Eventually, these wines got a designation all their own, the Indicazione Geografica Tipica or IGT. Wines in this classification fall between what may be considered (but not always the case) higher quality DOCG classification and the lower quality "table wine" classification.

Bordeaux Blends

In France, the only grapes allowed for use in a bottle labeled "Bordeaux" are:

• Cabernet Sauvignon
• Merlot
• Malbec
• Petite Verdot
• Carmenere
• Cabernet Franc

If the vitner uses any other grapes, the wine cannot be labeled Bordeaux. Wine makers generally choose two to three different grapes form the approved Bordeaux list, but rarely, if ever, use all six grapes.

Meritage

Okay, many people want to pronounce this as Mer-a-tahj, but it isn't, it's Mer-a-tij, a blend of the words merit and heritage. Meritage wines found their beginnings as a result of vintners producing a Bordeaux style blend of wine, but the grapes, nor the wine were from Bordeaux. Only wine made in Bordeaux can bear the name.

Just like its French counterpart, there are rules to labeling a bottle Meritage:

• The vintner must produce 25,000 cases or less of Meritage wine per year (vintage).
• It must be considered one of the wineries higher quality wines.
• Wineries must be approved by the Meritage Association in order to use the name on the label.

Meritage blends are made in the same style and using the same grapes as the Bordeaux blends described above.

Other Wine Blends

If you are one of those asking "What is a wine blend?" and were looking for information on white wine blends, to answer your question, there are plenty of those around as well. So as not to bombard you with too much information all at once, we'll make sure to cover white wine blends at a different time to appease your craving for more wine knowledge.