During the September long weekend, I embarked on my first journey to beautiful Napa Valley Wine Country in Napa County, California – a haven for wine drinkers and foodies alike.

After a tiring volleyball tournament weekend in San Francisco, we rented a car and embarked on our journey. We traveled up and down the hilly streets of San Fran, through Lombard Street’s multiple zig-zags, over the Golden Gate Bridge, and through to the notably gorgeous Napa Valley for the day.

The drive to Napa was unforgettable: endless hills of vineyards that glistened and sparkled in the Californian sun (some vineyards attach silver shimmering cards to their vines to keep birds away). We visited the Robert Mondavi Winery where the green fields of vines were stunning, the vineyard’s architecture was classical seaside Mediterranean, the walkways were deeply serene, and the 2005 Moscato D’Oro was like honey to our lips.

So the next time you’re in California or the surrounding area – don’t forget to take the unforgettable journey through to Napa Valley and Sonoma County for some of the best wine the New World has to offer.

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I have been wondering about the difference between red wines and white wines. To me, they taste quite different. Red wines are heavier and more complex than white wine, and often tend to be less sweet. Why is this? Actually red and white wines are made quite differently. The differences between red and white wines include the kinds of grapes used, the fermentation and aging process, and the character and flavor of the wine.

White wines are almost always made from white grapes, although they can be made from black grapes, since the juice in most black grapes is clear. When white wine is made, the skins of the grapes are separated from the juice when they are put into a crushing machine. Then yeast is added to the juice for fermentation, until the juice becomes white wine. After filtering etc, the wine is aged by storing it in stainless steel or occasionally oak containers and bottled after a few months. White wines, then, are made without skins or seeds and are essentially fermented grape juice. They have a light character and have crisp fruit flavors and aromas. They can be sweet or dry or somewhere in between. Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio/ Pinot Gris, Riesling, and Sauvignon Blanc are all white wines.

Red wine is usually made from red or black grapes, although all the kinds of grapes usually have a clear juice. The process of making red wine is different from the one of making white wine. After the grapes have been in the crushing machine, the red grapes with their skins and everything sit in a fermentation vat for a period of time, typically about one to two weeks. . The skins tend to rise to the surface of the mixture and form a layer on top. The winemaker frequently mixes this layer back into the fermenting juice (which is called must). After fermentation is over, the new wine is taken from the vat. A little “free run” juice is allowed to pour and the rest of the must is squeezed into “press wine”. The wine is clarified and then is stored, usually in oak containers, for several months until it is ready to be bottled. The oak containers add additional wood tannins and flavors to the wine which help to intensify it and add richness to it. The result of this process is that red wines exhibit a set of rich flavors with spicy, herby, and even meaty characteristics. Beaujolais, Cabernet Sauvignon, Chianti, Merlot, Pinot Noir and Zinfandel are all red wines.

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If you are looking for fine French wine and food, consider the Languedoc-Roussillon region of south central France. You may find a bargain, and I hope that you’ll have fun on this fact-filled wine education tour in which we review a local red Pinot Noir.

Among the eleven wine-growing regions of France Languedoc-Roussillon ranks number four in total vineyard acreage. This area, which includes the Midi was traditionally known for generating immense amounts of rather dubious table wine called vin ordinaire. Recently, in part because of Australian winemakers, the region has started to produce a lot of fine wine. A few weeks ago a salesman offering free samples greeted me at my nearby wine store. While I hadn’t planned to review yet another Languedoc-Roussillon wine so soon after the two others, I was particularly intrigued by this wine’s classification and its grape variety.

The wine bottle proudly displayed a sticker proclaiming its Gold ranking in a national contest for Vin de Pays (Country Wines) in 2006. You may recall from the initial article in this series (I Love French Wine and Food – Launching a Series) that Vin de Pays is a relatively recent French classification for wines of promise that for one reason or another don’t meet the stricter requirements of the presumably better classifications. Even though almost one third of French wine is classified as Vin de Pays we don’t get too many of them here. I smelled a potential bargain.

The grape variety was Pinot Noir. I know of a relatively recent exhaustive list of Languedoc-Roussillon grape varieties comprising over thirty entries, some famous, others obscure. Pinot Noir was absent, surely not by oversight. Pinot Noir tends to be a cool-weather grape found in places such as Champagne and Burgundy in France, and Oregon in the United States. In our various article series we reviewed Pinot Noirs from non-traditional areas including Germany, Italy, and France (Alsace). We’ll see below how a Languedoc-Roussillon Pinot Noir stacks up.

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