\u201cBlending is the winemakers\u2019 equivalent to chefs cooking up a signature dish,\u201d says Brian Bicknell, owner of the New Zealand winery Mahi. While some wines \u2014 such as Burgundies \u2014 are made from a single kind of grape grown in a single year, most wines are blends of grapes grown in various years. Blending together wines made from different grapes allows winemakers to combine less-stellar batches \u2014 too acidic or tannic, say \u2014 to create a wine that\u2019s better balanced.<\/p>\n
Every year, Mr. Bicknell sits down with four or five people from his vineyard \u2014 including his wife, who he says has a \u201cfresher and more commercial palate\u201d \u2014 to make the blending decisions. They spend two weeks tasting and rating 30 or so unbottled wines in stock at the winery, aiming to craft from them an ideal blend, which is then bottled and sold.<\/p>\n
As an exercise, you can try blending at home. Start with a few bottles of different mid-to-low-end drinking wines, and keep three rules in mind: Taste your wines at room temperature, not chilled, so the flavors blossom fully; taste the dry wines before the sweet ones; younger before old and more-acidic wines first; and take breaks to prevent \u201cpalate fatigue.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of the day, the best blend is in the eye of the beholder,\u201d says Mr. Bicknell. \u201cEveryone has a signature style.\u201d<\/p>\n
Winemakers usually consider the following before they blend: <\/p>\n
Grape type. Different grapes have innate flavors: Sauvignon Blancs, for example, tend to be floral and fragrant, while Chardonnays have a fuller body. And thin-skinned Pinot Noirs grapes are much lighter in tannin than thick-skinned Cabernet Sauvignons grapes.<\/p>\n
Vintage. Temperatures yield different flavors in grapes: Colder years tend to result in higher-acid grapes and warmer years in grapes with riper fruit flavors.<\/p>\n
Vineyard. Besides temperature, certain vineyards also have specific soil characteristics that filter directly into the taste of the grapes. And certain wine-growing regions favor certain winemaking styles \u2014 California winemakers, for instance, prefer different tastes than French winemakers.<\/p>\n
Machine or hand-picked. Grapes picked en masse by machines are usually harvested later in the year. Having spent more time on the vine, they produce wines that Mr. Bicknell calls \u201cfruit bombs\u201d because they\u2019ve had more time to ripen and produce sugar. Hand-picked grapes, plucked at an earlier stage of ripening, tend to exhibit less in-your-face fruit flavors, and create wines that carry earthy expressions on the palate.<\/p>\n
Pressed vs. free-run. When grapes are machine-pressed, much of the potassium from the skin also seeps into the liquid. This lowers the acidity of the grape juice and adds a \u201csoapy\u201d texture.<\/p>\n
New or old barrels. Winemakers have different preferences on the amount of time their wines spend in oak barrels. The longer the time, the stronger the oak taste.
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