Types of Grapes

In Bordeaux what they do best is blend different varieties and below is a selection of the main ones allowed by law and used by most vineyards. A grape variety or varietal is called a « cepage » in French The secret lies in the proportion of each variety and of course the winemaker’s skill.

White Wine Grapes

Sauvignon Blanc

• aromas ranging from gooseberry to tropical passion fruit
• elderflower and blackcurrant leaf

SAUVIGNON BLANC is at its most fragrant and fresh in the cooler climate of the Bordeaux and Loire Valley where cut-grass, nettles, elderflower, blackcurrent leaf and gooseberries are the key flavours with minerally, zesty, flinty undertones. It is at its most assertive in the pungently catty, elderfloral style in warmer countries like Australia, where, depending on ripeness levels it ranges from green bean, tinned pea and asparagus flavours and the riper, more tropical characters of grapefruit, guava, passion fruit and mango.

Semillon

• lime citrus and honey
• lusciously sweet and marmaladey

SEMILLON varies in character considerably according to its region of origin. In Bordeaux blends with sauvignon, it can be citrus like with lanoline-textured, waxy honeyed richness while New World semillion famously develops lime and buttered toast flavours with age, in contrast to the more pungently grass and asparagus-like characteristics associated with cooler climates, such as Bordeaux. Made as a sweet wine, it makes some of the worlds' most lusciously sweet, exotically marmaladey whites.

Oak barrel room at Chateau de Cõme in St-Estephe

Red Wine Grapes

Cabernet Sauvignon

• aromas of capsicum and blackcurrant
• a range of cedar, vanilla and coffee notes

CABERNET SAUVIGNON covers a wide spectrum of aromas and flavours. It tends towards herbaceousness when not fully ripe with capsicum and grassy undertones, but as it ripens it tends towards the flavours of blackcurrant and when very concentrated, cassis. Its affinity with oak lends secondary characters with a range of vanilla, cedar, sandalwood, tobacco, coffee, musk and spicy notes.

Merlot

• aromas of bell pepper and blackcurrant
• chocolate and spice-like characters

MERLOT's soft texture helps to give it a deliciously plummy, almost fruitcake-like flavour and a mellow smoothness which makes it more approachable than its sister grape, the CABERNET SAUVIGNON. Like Cabernet, it can be a little grassy and bell-pepper-like from cool climate regions and it develops blackcurrant, blackberry, blueberry, chocolate and spice-like characters when fully ripe.

Cabernet Franc

• aroma of raspberry and lead pencil shavings

CABERNET FRANC, the distant relative of CABERNET SAUVIGNON, can produce deliciously perfumed, supple, raspberry and blackcurrant-infused red wines in Bordeaux, while further north in the cooler regions of the Loire Valley, it produces a wine which tends to become more herbaceous in style. It is often described as having the aroma of pencil shavings.