Mouthfeel

The tactile impression of a wine in your mouth. Like clothing, wine can feel soft, rough, velvety, and so on.

Merlot and cabernet sauvignon share the same father—cabernet franc. But who was merlot’s mother?

A. Malbec

B. Manseng Noir

C. Carménère

D. Magdeleine Noire des Charentes

In the early 1990s, grape geneticists determined that merlot was the offspring of cabernet franc. But merlot’s other parent remained a mystery for ten years, until the French scientist Jean-Michel Boursiquot found merlot’s unnamed mother in an abandoned vineyard in Brittany, France. A few years later, more moms were found in the Charentes region of southwestern France. Bourisquot named the vines Magdeleine Noire des Charentes.

País

País (pie EECE) is the historic grape behind Chile’s table wines. Originally known as criolla chica, pais (the name means “country”) is the same as California’s mission grape. Based on DNA typing, both pais and… Continue reading

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