PS is not what gives the typical jammy Zin its jammy character. PS is there for structure, and would be behind, not ahead, of the Zin in ripening. Jammy Zin is because there’s an unusual range of ripeness in each cluster, plus uneven ripeness inherent to head-trained vines. Add in amateurish winemakers being afraid of the less ripe berries (Oh no! Complexity! j/k) and heat spikes sending ripeness out of control.
PS is nothing but normal for an old vine mixed black vineyard.
Exactly.
Put whatever you want in it, don’t tell me, call it The Prisoner, and I’m sold.
Wasn’t Caymus actually dinged for using too much fruit from outside Napa Valley AVA and still calling it Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon? Not that anyone on WB was rushing to buy Caymus (or that Caymus actually cared … prob cried all the way to the bank) … but it seems like it COULD happen?
Well, you raised the issue. My point was that, if you reflect just a little and search for “preemption” in the regs, it’s pretty clear that there’s really no issue of conflict between the federal and Oregon rules or federal preemption.
It is not enforced.
Well, by crackey…back in my early days the varietal minimum was 50% & was raised to 75% sometime in the early '70’s as I recall.
They idea that 100% makes for a more varietal correct/better wine is balderdash. Ridge does a great job with their PS additions to giving structure & color
to their Zins.
There seems to be the thought that the 75% minimum is being used by producers to pull the wool over the consumers eyes and cut corners and reduce
the cost of production. I think most of the producers we on WB drink are interested in making the best wine they can and use the 25% slop to make a better
wine. And that includes KJ and Gallo. The Prisoner & CopperCane…maybe not so much.
Tom
I don’t normally consider Tom to be the voice of reason, but…there it is.
Well, David… sometimes I can pull the wool over even your eyes!!
Tom
If 75% is good enough for your wine grapes, how about your ground meats? I have worked in meat shops (you don’t really want to know the details). Say you are fine with beef, pork, chicken, and turkey. Are you OK if your ground beef is only 75% beef? I’m not talking Bork here (beef/pork labeled as such). What about a mystery blend? Hmmm, this beef is more pale than usual. What do you think? 25% chicken? I’m having fun here, but really…
I’ll see your analogy and raise you one: 85% is good enough for gasoline. The rest can be ethanol.
There seems to be an undercurrent of thought here that any grapes put into a blend other than the grape variety listed cheapens the wine. Certainly, that is true if one adds say something like Ruby Cabernet to Cabernet Sauvignon, etc., etc.
But, the American wine industry has put itself into a bind. It has sold this country and really a good bit of the world on the idea of labeling wines by variety. But, in many parts of the world, blending of several top quality grapes is routine. Bordeaux, obviously, is a blend of up to five grapes, in general. I don’t think of any of the five grapes as things that cheapens the wines, as long as it is used properly. Even in the new world, Australia has popularized Cabernet/Shiraz blends.
I understand that there are words for these wines like Meritage, but if on a shelf in a supermarket there are two identical bottles of wine but one bottle says Cabernet Sauvignon and the other that says Meritage, which one will sell? In your zeal for purity, are you going to economically force producers to make inferior wines where a producer thinks a Cabernet Sauvignon with a bit of Merlot and/or Cabernet Franc tastes better than one of 100% Cabernet Sauvignon but will have to bottle 100% Cabernet Sauvignon because he needs the proper label?
This really is not about people on this board. We happily buy and enjoy say Ridge Geyserville even though it does not say Zinfandel, etc. But, are you sure you are helping everyday wine drinkers by what you propose? Would you create an exception if the grapes in the 25% portion of say a Cabernet Sauvignon are grapes that have been traditionally parts of Bordeaux blends, with similar exceptions for other traditional blends?
Some background on the issue of labeling in Oregon in Oregon is in the link below.
The fundamental disagreement is about truth in labeling/consumer protection.
In Oregon, issues have been place and varietal and the key rhetorical questions are:
Things get really tricky when you combine varietal and geography:
Should a bottle containing 90% Willamette Valley Pinot Noir and 10% Umpqua Valley Sangiovese be able to be presented to the consumer as Willamette Valley Pinot Noir? Should a bottle containing 75% Napa Cabernet and 25% Lodi Malbec be able to be presented to the consumer as Napa Valley Cabernet?
Ridge is an example of blending for a good purpose and without misleading labeling.
Many blending situations are based on “cost reduction by dilution”. Cannabis cut with Oregano in the “old days”…
The original question was not whether it should be allowed, but whether the percentage was high enough.
I think there are wines that almost all drinkers (who care to know) accept as likely to have been blended (some merlot/franc/verdot in your Cab) and some that are not (PN, nebbiolo most of the time) and others that are used in blends but also on their own depending on the tradition of the location (Syrah as a blend in S. Rhone and Australia, on its own effectively in N. Rhone).
I would say that, to original question, 85% is a better number and most “varietal” wines could make it–Cabs, Zins, US Syrah (which I would prefer NOT to be labeled as varietal if blended with other than a tiny bit of Viognier). They will still “taste like” Cab, Zin, etc. Most of them would make 85%. Ridge stopped labeling most of their Zin when the 75% number kicked in.
I think, to answer Larry, the reason not to blend anything in PN, is that it is easily overwhelmed by what you blend in, which is maybe what some drinkers want–darker, heavier wine–but not very typical of the grape.
I favor listing the breakdown on wines, but there are some perfectly good kitchen sink wines that it would seem pointless to do this.
Also, to everyone asking who polices it, I notice that the winemakers know that the answer is “no one.”