Jancis Robinson | JancisRobinson.com
WEBJancis's diary – September 2024. 1 Oct 2024. Jancis Robinson. Wine knowledge platform by Jancis Robinson. From beginners to experts, learn more about wine with our articles, tasting notes, and more.
Burgundy Red Wine Vintage Chart: 1978 to 2022
WEB2001. Wet summer with some heat spikes. As for red bordeaux from this vintage, a gentle hand was needed in the winery to retain delicacy and not emphasize the already notable tannins. Quite varied quality. Wines from low-yielding grapes will provide exciting long-term drinking but others are gawky. August hail in Volnay.
Merlot wine grapes | JancisRobinson.com
WEBMerlot conventionally makes lush, plummy, velvety wine that can soften Cabernet's more austere frame and, usefully, matures much faster. Very much a wine of the times, it enjoyed enormous popularity in the United States in the 1990s and early 2000s – until usurped by Pinot Noir. Merlot's homeland is Bordeaux where it is the most important ...
Cabernet Sauvignon | JancisRobinson.com
WEBThe progeny of Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc, is the world's most famous red wine grape, and most planted of any colour.The 'chocolate' to Chardonnay's 'vanilla', Cabernet is much more positively flavoured than Chardonnay, and ripens much later, so tends to be planted in rather warmer areas. The great distinction of the wine it produces is that it has a very powerful and recognisable ...
Rioja wine region | JancisRobinson.com
WEBRioja has traditionally been American oak's most expressive ambassador. The wine is made from a blend of Tempranillo and Garnacha (Grenache) grapes aged for a considerable number of years in the sweet, vanilla-scented warmth of small American oak barrels. The result of this prolonged ageing was to allow a high proportion of phenolics to be left ...
Cabernet Franc | JancisRobinson.com
WEBIn 1997 it was shown by pioneers of applying DNA analysis to grapevines that Cabernet Sauvignon is the progeny of Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc, so in fact Cabernet Franc, whose origins seem to lie in Basque country in the western Pyrenees, must predate Cabernet Sauvignon by quite a while.As a vine and a wine, Cabernet Franc is more ...
Wine vintages | JancisRobinson.com
WEBVintages. Growing seasons vary enormously from year to year. Here's your free guide to the most relevant vintages in the most significant regions. We think these brief descriptions are more useful than a numerical score.
Pinot Grigio | JancisRobinson.com
WEBThis white-wine-producing mutation of Pinot Noir is enjoying a wave of popularity perhaps greater than it has ever known, and certainly on a wider geographical scale, even if it is relatively rarely known by its true French name Pinot Gris. Until recently Pinot Gris was probably known mainly in Alsace (as Tokay d'Alsace), northern Italy (as Pinot Grigio) and in Germany (as Grauburgunder or ...
Chablis wine region | JancisRobinson.com
WEBBurgundy's white wine outpost is one of France's most northern and it is hardly surprising therefore that the wines are naturally relatively sinewy, high in acidity and steely rather than luscious and oaky. This is an archetypally refreshing, long-lived style of white wine which very few wine regions, possibly none other than Chablis, can produce.
Champagne wine region | JancisRobinson.com
WEBUnexpectedly for a wine that is quintessentially light and white, champagne is made from predominantly black grapes. Less than 30% of Champagne's 34,000 ha (84,000 acres) of neat, low, rows of densely planted vines are light-skinned Chardonnay, the white burgundy grape. The red burgundy grape Pinot Noir is planted on almost 40% of Champagne's ...