Nomadic Wines

Foreign juice in American wines

So I was at CrushPad earlier this month for the walkaround tasting (where everyone's samples are tables - we, the customers, are trying both our own wines and wines from others).

Anyway, the level of wine sophistication seems to vary from a little geeky to very geeky (like me). I was alone and I mostly eavesdropped into other conversations. One particular conversation caught my ear and I listened to them for a few minutes.

Essentially, two men were talking about non-American wine being included in wines from America. They seemed to be aware that this could happen and they knew that wine only had to have 75% of its contents from the declared appellation. In fact, that is correct in California, while in Washington/Oregon the requirements are stricter. Rules are also stricter when declaring the county or viticultural area.

What struck me was their (the two men's) expectation that wineries would be honest. They didn't expect this practice would be widespread... but I have the opposite expectation, especially for the large wineries. I doubt that makers of $50 Napa Cabs are mixing in Cabernet from Argentina, but I bet the mass producers use this technique if it saves them costs.

What do you think?

Labels: Crushpad, wine

posted by nomadfromcincy @ 12:06 AM