Salut/Hi Vino,

le/on Tue, 31 Aug 2004 00:00:27 GMT, tu disais/you said:-

>On Mon, 30 Aug 2004 14:01:20 GMT, Leo Bueno
> wrote:

>>countries in a wide variety of climates. The primary species is Vitis
>>vinifera and of the thousands of cultivars only around 30 are
>>regularly cultivated and of these only a dozen or so are considered to
>>be premium.

Really? "are considered" begs several questions.

1 Why 12?
2 By whom?
3 on what criteria?


>Personally, I find this whole exercise (and the related one on
>regions) less than useless.

Yup, I agree. And I'm increasingly getting the feeling that Leo is using us
to do all his research for his wine class. This is smelling increasingly
like Mario Desiderio (not suggestying they're one and the same, by the way)

For me "premium" has quality implications, and any list which includes Pinot
Gris and not Pinot Noir has to belong to cloud cuckooland.

For what it's worth, (and trying NOT to be either country or region biased)
and in no particular order, would you go along with this?

6 whites

Riesling
Chardonnay
Sauvignon Blanc/Gris
Sémillon or else Pinot Gris
Chenin Blanc
Gruner Veltliner

6 reds

Pinot Noir,
Cabernet Sauvignon
Merlot
Syrah/Shiraz
Sangiovese
Tempranilla

which goes to show how ridiculous the exercise is, as it leaves out many
very great wines worldwide. How can one leave out:-

Tannat. Ch Montus Prestige (frequently highly placed against Bdx in
competitions) and many good wines from Uruguay)

Malbec - Wines from Cahors, component in Bdx, Argentina

Zinfandel - probably the mst typical California grape

Gewurztraminer, excellent in Alsace (especially for difficult foods) and
elsewhere.

Viognier, real class whites

Furmint for what are amongst the worlds best sweet wines.

Nope. Silly exercise.

--
All the Best
Ian Hoare
http://www.souvigne.com
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