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Simply red

Winemakers have embraced the generic term and are blending as many as 15 grapes for smooth drinking and good taste at a moderate price.

By CHRIS SHERMAN
Published October 4, 2006

	[Times photo: Bob Croslin]

Tired of trying to pronounce names of strange places or figure out which grape you like when hunting for a good bottle of wine? Relax. There's a simple term for some of California's best wines: red.

For instance, Old Vine Red, Reds, Old Bull Red, Jest Red, Frontier Red, Cheap Red, Big Monster Red, Red Truck, Big House Red, Dad's Daily Red and just plain Red. yes, with a period and many others that call themselves nothing more complicated.

But the wines in the bottle are not as simple as the name implies. They are blends of as many as 15 grapes, from the fashionable French cabernets to charbono and other forgotten favorites of Italian settlers, and even the white juice from viognier grapes. These wines are balanced carefully for smooth drinking, ranging from a sweet touch to lusty spice.

The coy names are a mix of modesty, cheeky marketing and federal law. In the United States, when no single grape amounts to at least 75 percent of the juice in a blended wine, the end result must be called "Red Table Wine."

Once a put-down on generic cheapos, the term is now embraced by winemakers who are delighted to mix many grapes for smooth drinking and good taste, not for ratings or arbitrary purity of character.

They are honest wines, not the cheapest yet not terribly expensive. Most sell for $8 to $15, a few dollars more than many wines with cute labels and supposedly all-syrah taste. And they are several grades better in the mouth.

To find them you must look in odd corners where stores stock "other reds." Smart wine buyers have eyed those shelves for almost 30 years for Marietta Cellars Old Vine Red.

Marietta is a pioneer of the group, producing a lush, dark red bottled not by vintages but by batches. For example, Lot No. 40 is a treasure still priced around $12.

Blending was an idea that couldn't be denied: Forgo the most expensive grapes and make great wine by lending affordable odd lots of zinfandel and other less prestigious grapes.

"The world was just getting too high-falutin'," says Patrick Campbell, a concert violist and kayak racer who was making high-end Laurel Glen cabs in the early 1990s. "Very good wines but my friends couldn't afford them and neither could I."

So he came up with Reds, a revolutionary brand he called "wine for the people," an under $10 mix of affordable grapes he found in old vineyards.

"We're more intentional now," Campbell says, using a consistent formula. Laurel Glen now farms its own grapes for Reds, mostly zinfandel, some cabernet sauvignion and always carignane.

Carignane is key for reaching back to old-fashioned infancy flavor. It's a lusty workaday grape, a Rhone red that became a California staple a century ago but is now ignored. Consequently Campbell's carignane comes from 117-year-old vines that produce small dark berries with big flavor and old-time taste.

Blending is indeed an old practice. European wine laws specified the grapes acceptable in the wines of any locale, whether Chianti or Bordeaux. Early Californians made wines by blending and called their product Burgundy or Rhine no matter what grapes they used.

In the 20th century, U.S. wineries chose to make single-grape wines and identify the bottles accordingly, as pinot noir, chardonnay and so on.

Then in the late 1980s some wineries reversed field. They proposed to blend cabernets, merlot, malbec and petite verdot on their merits, as a Bordeaux chateau would. They called it meritage and charged $50.

Big deal. The blends of Marietta Cellars, Laurel Glen and others had started a trend everyone could enjoy.

Enter the Rhone Rangers with a love of spicy grapes from Provence and the winemakers of Oz, where anything goes and the fun began.

Today creative California winemakers play with them all. Bordeaux grapes, new Rhone imports such as syrah, mourvedre and grenache, Cal-Ital sangiovese and barbera, Spanish tempranillo and old-vine zin and petite sirah make quite a field blend.

And a fine glass of . . . red.

Chris Sherman can be reached at (727) 893-8586 or csherman@sptimes.com

RED BLENDS

Red, red wine is an ever-popular, good-time drink. Most are packaged with a smile in easygoing names, waggish labels or witty packaging like the 1-liter black jug used by Martin Ray. But the wines are rarely the same.

VARIETY: The "red" can be blushing, candy-apple or near-noir. Made to drink now, they can be light or rich. Some are gutsy enough to need an airing. All improve after 15 minutes, or the first glass.

FOOD: The flavors can be grape-jam friendly or robust and spicy, yet they are good matches for foods from tempura to barbecue.

PRICES: Some proprietary blends and meritages sell for $25 and up, a few for as little as $5. Most cost $8 to $15.

GRAPES: The difference in the taste is the grapes in the blend. They could be a mix of Bordeaux's polished cabernets franc and sauvignon, merlot, malbec and petite verdot, but most are the ripe warm-weather favorites such as carignane, zinfandel and petite syrah. Others are a spicy Rhone mix of syrah, grenache and mourvedre or one of each in an Australian free-for-all plus Italian varietals and white grapes to soften it all.

Whatever. The little old winemaker worried so you don't have to.

- CHRIS SHERMAN

TASTING NOTES

Cheap Red Wine, 2005. Unknown grapes from the central coast make for clean, light red. Surprisingly good fruit flavor, a touch tinny, but enough acid for backbone. Bargain drinking, $5.

Ironstone Xpression, 2004. A mix of grapes from old vineyards, the wine is all strawberry and raspberry in color and flavor, oddly oaky, with leanness and crisp finish for spicy food. $8.

Jest Red, nonvintage. Wags in the zinfandel mountains say only that they used seven grapes and the bare feet of beautiful women on a dewy October morn. The result is raspberries, with a rich, full texture and a bit of pepper and slight sharpness. About $10.

Joseph Phelps Pastiche, 2004. Phelps makes grander blends in Insignia and Mistral, but Pastiche is Rhone with a California twist: mostly grenache and cab, plus alicante and pinot noir. They make a silky taste of plums, berries, cherries and cookie spice for fun. $15.

Martin Ray Red, 2003. This new-generation red blend is from the reborn winery of the legendary Martin Ray. In the jug is mostly cabernet franc and merlot, which makes a plummy wine with vanilla in the nose and a creamy texture. $15 for a 1-liter bottle.

Turnbull Old Bull Red, 2005. Other blends buy grapes statewide, but Old Bull is Napa fruit. Big and black, it's mostly merlot with wild sidekicks, tempranillo, sangiovese, petite sirah and barbera. Let it open to a soft, full richness, big fruit in vanilla cinnamon cream. Worth the wait and price. $20.

- CHRIS SHERMAN

[Last modified October 3, 2006, 12:38:53]