Cabernet Sauvignon
Cabernet Sauvignon is probably the most famous red wine grape variety on Earth. From its origins in Bordeaux, Cabernet has successfully spread to almost every winegrowing country in the world. It is now the key grape variety in many first-rate New World wine regions, most notably Napa Valley, Coonawarra and Maipo Valley. Wherever they come from, Cabernet Sauvignon wines always seem to demonstrate a handful of common character traits: deep colour, good tannin structure, moderate acidity and aromas of blackcurrant, tomato leaf, dark spices and cedarwood.
Used as frequently in blends as in varietal wines, Cabernet Sauvignon has a large number of common blending partners. Apart from the obvious Merlot and Cabernet Franc, the most prevalent of these are Malbec, Petit Verdot and Carmenere (the ingredients of a classic Bordeaux Blend), Shiraz (in Australia’s favourite blend) and in Spain and South America, a Cabernet – Tempranillo blend is now commonplace.
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Corvina
Corvina is an Italian red wine grape most famous as a key constituent of Valpolicella wines, along with Rondinella. Its most commonly cited characteristic is its sour cherry flavour, as well as its lack of colour and tannin – Corvina wines tend to be bright red and lighter in structure. The variety also lends itself well to the apassimento process of air-drying grapes, used to make the famous Amarone wine.
Malbec
Malbec is a black-skinned grape variety native to southwestern France (specifically the area around Cahors), but now better known as the iconic wine grape of Argentina. Through its success in the vineyards of Mendoza, in a few short decades Malbec has shot from relative obscurity to international fame, simultaneously bringing newfound attention and respect to Argentina as a wine-producing nation. French Malbec tends to be more meaty, rustic and tannic, while examples from Argentina seem to be uniformly rich, ripe, jammy and juicy. On both sides of the Atlantic, Malbec wines are generally aged in oak to enhance the wine’s structure and aging potential.
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Merlot
Merlot is a red wine grape variety with strong historic ties to Bordeaux and the southwest of France. It is the predominant variety in most wines from Saint-Émilion and Pomerol, the area in which the variety originated. Merlot is now widely planted in wine regions across the world and, in terms of the volumes of wine produced internationally, it is rivalled only by its Bordeaux companion, Cabernet Sauvignon.
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Grenache
Grenache (Garnacha) is a red-wine grape grown extensively in France, Spain, Australia and the United States. It is particularly versatile both in the vineyard and the winery, which may explain why it is one of the most widely distributed grapes in the world.
Nebbiolo
Nebbiolo is the grape variety behind the top-quality red wines of Piedmont, north-western Italy, the most notable of which are Barolo and Barbaresco. Nebbiolo wines are distinguished by their strong tannins, high acidity and distinctive scent – often described as “tar and roses”. A less obvious characteristic, visible only over time, is their tendency to lose colour. Within just a few years of vintage, most Nebbiolo wines begin fading from deep, violet-tinged ruby to a beautiful brick orange.
Shiraz
The main red variety of the great Crozes Hermitage, Shiraz is so important to Australian viticulture that it is the most planted grape variety in the majority of Australian vineyards and has become virtually synonymous with the country’s wine regions, and in particular the Barossa Valley.
The term Shiraz has its roots in the New World, although there is no one story about how it came to be named this. The prevailing style of Shiraz winemaking reflects its New World roots, though, tending toward bright fruit flavours – most frequently blueberries, blackcurrants and black cherries. Secondary notes of chocolate lend themselves well to the full-bodied texture of these wines, often accented by pepper and spice.
Sangiovese
A strong all-rounder, Sangiovese is Italy’s most widely planted wine grape, and a cornerstone of the Italian national vineyard. It is as comfortable in humble IGT wines as it is in traditional DOCG greats like Chianti, Brunello di Montalcino and Vino Nobile di Montepulciano.
Carménère
Carménère is a dark-skinned grape variety originally from the vineyards of Bordeaux, and which has found a particularly suitable home in Chile.
A late-ripening variety, Carménère needs high levels of sunshine and a warm summer to reach its full potential, but in the right environment it can produce fine, deeply coloured red wines, with the attractive meaty plumpness of Merlot and the gently herbaceous, cedary notes of Cabernet Sauvignon.
Pinot Noir
Pinot Noir is the red wine grape of Burgundy, now adopted (and feverishly studied) in wine regions all over the world. It is the patriarch of the ‘Pinot’ family of grape varieties – so called because their bunches are similar in shape to a pine cone.
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Tempranillo
The backbone of some of the finest wines from Spain and Portugal. Almost every red wine from Rioja and Ribera del Duero has Tempranillo at its core, and in Portugal the variety is widely used in the Douro Valley – under the name Tinta Roriz – both for table wines and fortified wines (Port). Tempranillo vines have been successfully adopted in the New World, especially in California, Argentina and Australia.
Zinfandel
Zinfandel is a dark-skinned red wine grape variety widely cultivated in California. It arrived in the Americas from Europe in the early years of the 19th Century, and was an immediate success in both Napa and Sonoma counties, which remain its strongholds today.
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