Blend

To combine two or more lots of wine in hopes of enhancing flavor, BALANCE, and/or complexity. Often these are wines from different grape varieties, such as cabernet sauvignon and merlot, for example. However, blends may also be made up of wines that come from grapes grown in different soil or microclimates, wines that come from vines of different ages, wines from different CLONES, or wines made by different winemaking methods (some aged in one kind of oak, some in another, for instance). Virtually all Bordeaux wines and Champagnes are blends, as are wines from France’s southern Rhône Valley and numerous other wines from elsewhere around the world.