T’is the season to be jolly! Or in my case, tipsy! I must admit that Christmas is my favourite time of year! I love wrapping up warm, the twinkling lights, the parties and the time spent with loved ones. I love grazing on chocolates, cheeses and crackers and I love indulging in some lovely French Wine!
Which leads me to the subject of this blog post! Expat Immigrant’s Beginners Guide to French Wine! I really wanted to ‘distill’ all the things I learned from our wine tasting podcast episode – ‘How To Buy Wine in France – SE 2 EP 27’ into an easy to follow guide for myself and Kat and anyone who needs a refresher on the basics of wine. Perhaps you might be with with your family or even the in-laws this Christmas and you want to impress them with your knowledge of French Wine? If so, then continue reading!!
Developing your Palate
If you’re anything like me, you may think that you don’t have a palate but the good news is, that with time and effort we can develop it! We learned from Greg that we should be paying attention to the things we eat, especially when it comes to fruits and spices. Have you ever tasted something and it brought back a memory to you? This is the sort of thing we’re talking about.
Developing your palate means that your tongue is helping you to remember flavours and connecting it to the wine you are tasting. Our taste buds working alongside our sense of smell is what helps us to recognise certain aromas in wine.
Aromas
Different grape varieties produce different aromas. So if you want to look as if you know what you’re talking about, my advice would be to learn what grape variety matches a certain aroma and then confidently state it when your in-law is pouring your glass of wine!
Don’t be afraid to really put your nose inside the glass and inhale deeply to get a good smell of the wine. Does the wine smell like something you recognise? Greg also talked about paying attention to what we smell within our surroundings such as the fruit and vegetables from markets or the smell you find under fallen wood in a forest.
“For Londoners that will be weed and chicken shops”
Natalia Anderson – ‘How To Buy Wine in France – SE 2 EP 27’
Appellation
First of all Greg taught us not to confuse grape variety with appellation! So take note of that please!
“If you’re buying wine in a supermarket in France you have to know where you’re buying your wine from! Which region of France”.
Grégoire Brocas – ‘How To Buy Wine in France – SE 2 EP 27’
Appellation is, where in France a particular wine is made. If the wine bottle states “Appellation d’origine Contrôlée”, it means that only this place can produce this wine as it follows the strict rules regarding the wine’s production. Perhaps the most famous example of this is Champagne. Any other sparkling wine produced outside of the AOC of Champagne, cannot call itself champagne!
Some other French wine appellations to familiarise yourself with are: Bordeaux, Alsace (one of my faves), Beaujolais and Loire to name a few.
“The larger the [appellation] area the more wine producers you’ll find. The smaller the appellation is, sometimes it can mean the better the wine will be.”
Grégoire Brocas – ‘How To Buy Wine in France – SE 2 EP 27’
Whilst on the subject of appellation, I also wanted to mention that Greg advises us to learn a bit about French geography when it comes to wine. Which region produces which wine. If I may, I will simplify it down to this:
The more north you go in France, the cooler it is (in temperature that is, not street cred! 🤪) and therefore less heat and less direct sunlight. The types of grapes used here are ones that prefer a colder climate. This produces wine that is paler in colour and less strong.
The more south you go in France, the hotter it is and the grapes used here thrive in hotter climates. This produces wine that is darker in colour and stronger in alcohol content.
Obviously there’s more to it than that and there may be exceptions but if you want impress your family, look at the wine’s colour in the glass. If it’s dark then you can guess that it comes from the South of France and if it’s pale, the North.
Listen to our episode to hear Greg talk a bit about the sugars and fermentation process of wines.
Now, pay attention to this next bit because it’s where I’ve been getting confused in the past! Chardonnay is not the name of the wine but is in fact the grape variety often found in Burgundy. Greg helpfully stated that, “in Burgundy [there are] 2 grape varieties. Chardonnay for the White [wine], Pinot for the Red [wine].
Wine Tasting
So you want to look like you know what you’re doing when tasting wine? Don’t worry, I got you!
Step 1:
Open the wine bottle (watch the episode at 1:01.12 to see how to do this properly) and smell the cork. You want it to smell of the wine aromas and not of the cork. If it’s the latter then the wine is probably corked and trust me, you don’t want to drink it! Bleugh!
Step 2:
Pour the wine and look at it within your glass. If you have a white piece of paper nearby, set that behind your glass whilst you look through, tilting your glass so that the wine inside gathers to the side. This is so you can clearly see the colour and health of your wine. You don’t want it to be cloudy or for it to have deposits for example.
Step 3:
As stated earlier, get your nose inside the glass and take a sniff. Think about some of the aromas you might recognise. Does it smell of fruit or more like flowers? Can you narrow it down to the type of fruit/flower you’re smelling? If you can, then good for you! You’re probably a bit advanced for this blog post!
Step 4:
Taste the wine. Swirl it around in your mouth. Do a reverse gargle and try to activate all those tastebuds on your tongue. Think about what you can taste and the aromas coming through.
If you’re round the table with your in-laws, it’s at this point that you’ll swallow the wine, again noticing what flavours and aromas that come through at the back of your mouth. If you are wine tasting, this is where you may choose to spit the wine. Spitting the wine after you’ve tasted it in your mouth gives you another opportunity to get a hit of those aromas, and as Kat discovered during our episode, you may sense a “crescendo [of flavours] in your mouth”!
Gifting French Wine
So that’s how you taste wine, but let’s take it back a few steps and talk about gifting wine. Say for example you’ve been living abroad in France (like us!) and you want to bring a bottle of something back home to your family or the in-laws over the festive season. Whatever you do, according to Greg, DO NOT BRING A BAD CHAMPAGNE!
Aim to spend around €25-30 for the bottle.
What if you want to give wine as a gift to someone but you’re not sure what the other person likes? Greg recommends sticking to the classics. The classics are:
- Burgundy
- Rhone Valley
- Bordeaux
- Beaumes-de-Venise
- Vacqueras
- Châteauneuf-du-Pape
Spend in the region of €15 for the bottle and you can’t really go wrong!
Et voila!
That’s it for Expat Immigrant’s Beginners Guide to French Wine! I hope you’ve found it helpful! Did I miss anything? Feel free to comment below with some of the things you’ve learned about French Wine.
Also let me know if you’re planning on gifting wine to friends or family this year!
Most importantly, please remember to drink responsibly and be sure to enjoy this festive season!
Je vous aime et bonne continuation!
Nat xXx
