White Wine Basics - A guide to Riesling, Moscato, Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio, and Sauvignon Blanc

Hi, I'm Chad Killian with BeverageProfessor.com and we're here today at Bentley's in Springfield, Missouri, giving you this white wine education. First wine we're going to talk about today, I want to go into, this isn't even a white wine actually, but this is a wine that a lot of people get started with. It's White Zinfandel. With White Zinfandel, it's actually made from a red grape and when you squeeze that red grape, the grape is the Zinfandel grape, you squeeze it, the juice comes out clear, they drop the skins in contact with the juice for a while and then they pull that juice off because the color of the wine comes from the grape skins. So then they pull the skins off, gives it a little bit of blush color and then they retain some of the residual sugars in the wine and it comes across a little sweet. I use this wine just because this is kind of the introductory wine of what people like to try usually when they're tasting wines and it's a sweet wine. What I want to do is also give you some other options. We're going to go from sweet to dry, so if somebody wants to get off the White Zinfandel or they want to upsell to another product, there's some options here. If you want to get away from the White Zinfandel, the first grape that I would go to would be the musket grape or in Italy they call it Moscato. I brought a Moscato d'Asti, this is called Marco Negri. This wine actually has a bit of effervescence to it. When it says Moscato d'Asti, it will usually have a little sparkle, little effervescence. They also make a still Moscato that you'll see out in stores or in restaurants and there's no sparkle to it. Both are very sweet. The musket grape usually is made in a dessert style wine. It's a great upsell to the White Zinfandel and I'm going to pour it. Now this one here has just a little effervescence to it as you can tell, a little bubbly and that's why it's called a Moscato d'Asti. Now they also make Moscatos that are still wines that are just still flat wines basically but they're still sweet. Musket grape is also used in like Asti Spumani and things like that. See how much effervescence there is in that? The color, it's kind of a very light almost goldish color and then very tropical, a little acid to it but very sweet. Yeah, that is very sweet. I would recommend that you start with some of the drier style wines first and then go back to the sweet ones because it kind of interrupts your palate a little bit. From Moscato, our next step up would be Riesling. I think Rieslings tend to be just a touch drier than Moscato. Also with this wine, if you'll notice before I even talk more about Riesling, it has a screw cap and I know that a lot of people are kind of nervous about screw caps. I think we're getting more comfortable with screw caps but what's happening is more and more wines are going to screw cap and you shouldn't be afraid of it. It doesn't mean the wine's bad, it doesn't mean it's cheap or anything like that but what's happening is wines that are using actual cork are about probably three to five percent is what they're saying actually are cork tainted wines which means what happens is that the wine is not it's not harmful or anything but it's going to have a like a musty smell to it. You're not going to get the exact characteristic of the wine that the winemaker wanted you to get. They're finding out that the best way to seal a wine is with a screw cap. This is the Blufeld Riesling. Riesling comes from Germany for the most part. That's like where it was originated from. You will find it in France, you'll find it in the States. That said, let's give it a taste and try. Riesling is usually sweet for the most part. Now they can make a dry style Riesling. You'll get them in all levels of sweetness to dry everything else but for the most part a lot of German Rieslings will be sweet. We make them also in the States. Usually sometimes come across just a touch drier and you will see some labels will actually even say dry Riesling so that you'll get a little drier style wine. Now that Riesling is a very aromatic, very sweet, acid, quite a bit of acid in there too but it still comes across soft. Now we're going to get into wines that are a little bit more dry. This is the Pinot Grigio. We're going to get into some drier style wines. Pinot Grigio, also known as Pinot Gris, you'll see that in France sometimes, in the States sometimes we'll call it Pinot Gris. Kind of a middle of the road wine. You're looking at not quite sweet, not quite real dry but about a medium dryness. We'll taste that, try it out. You'll also notice the color of this. Very, very light in color. It's a very light bodied wine. Great summer sipper. This is also fermented 100% pretty much stainless steel. Doesn't touch wood meaning that it's not oak aged at all so you get a lot of acids and a lot more tropical characteristics in the wine. Yeah, very good. Great with like seafood and salads, things like that. Next we're going to dry. Okay, the last two wines we're going to have are going to be dry so if you want a dry white wine first one here we have is Sauvignon Blanc. This one here is Kimcroft Sauvignon Blanc. It's from Marlboro region of New Zealand and we're seeing that's more popular region right now. New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs are just on fire. They're going crazy. We also make Sauvignon Blanc in the United States. They make it in areas of France, Chile, other areas. So Sauvignon Blancs tend to come across very like with an herbal characteristic, kind of grassy and even like in New Zealand they come across a little bit more sometimes grapefruit, gooseberry, those characteristics. You may also see Sauvignon Blanc called Fumé Blanc. What that is is basically a term for what is supposed to be Sauvignon Blanc that has been aged a little bit in wood in oak barrels but you don't see Fumé Blanc very often but it is Sauvignon Blanc. It's the same grape. All right the color on this you're going to see it's still kind of light but a little gold in light in color. Sauvignon Blanc is very acidic. You're going to get a lot of acids in the mouth and on the tongue so yeah it's very dry. Dry style. Great again with seafoods, salads, pork, things like that. Last wine of our day it's going to be Chardonnay. This is the king of white wine basically. This is the best selling white wine basically in the world. Chardonnay is very diverse. You can see Chardonnay made oaked or unoaked and when I say that most of the time Chardonnay is in oak barrels. It's aged in oak barrels and it gives it just a little bit of a that golden color. It gives it a lot softer feel in the mouth. Takes away some of the acids when it's aged in oak. You will see some that are unoaked and it may say it on the label. Sometimes it won't say it on the label and those will be just more acidic and more tropical in character. If you notice the color on this one it's very golden. If you look over it you can see the golden color so that means it's oak aged and with oak aged also you get a little bit of sometimes buttery character or again oak character. Some really cheap Chardonnays or wines that want to kind of cut on budget they'll use oak chips in their wines just to give it a touch of oak character to it. Rich, buttery, great with like a good cream sauce something like that. I hope today that you were able to learn a little bit about white wine and that you have at least a little more comfort whenever you go out to make a purchase or if you're a waiter or waitress that you can go and talk to a table about white wine. That said I hope you guys enjoy. Come back and see us at beverageprofessor.com. Thank you.