Katarina's Blog

I am very fascinated by the wine you get from blending Cabernet Sauvignon and Sangiovese. These are two very different grapes with very different flavor profiles and instead of clashing they accentuate each other in a beautiful way. Sangiovese has a lighter fruitier strawberry nose which floats above the heavier blackberry and dark cherry of the Cabernet Sauvignon. The depth in the Cabernet with earthiness, cedar and laurel spices are not drowning out the Sangiovese which holds its own with its lighter vanilla spiciness. It reminds me of a duet between a soprano and a bass singer, you can hear each one distinctly since they sing at different frequencies.

When making a blend the winemaker is like a chef, mixing the ingredients to create a balanced wine where all the flavors come together. There are a number of factors to play with: how you grow the grapes, how you ferment and age the different grape varietals, how you blend them, and of course the weather, which plays with us more than the other way around. To create a Bordeaux style wine you have five grapes to choose from. I like to start with Cabernet Sauvignon as my base ingredient.

Harvest is over and it was a fast and furious one this year. It started earlier than ever and we were done with Cabernet Sauvignon at the end of September which is record early. Now we are waiting to see what El Nino will bring. But before that we have the fun "Wine and Food Affair" festival and we are introducing a new wine and a special recipe to go along.

Harvest has started and you can hear the noise at night and in the mornings and smell it in the air and in the wineries. At West Wines we are in the middle of picking Sauvignon Blanc. All our grapes are harvested manually, most of them at night with the help of big flood lights. The exception is Cabernet Sauvignon which grows in our upper vineyard where it is too steep to bring in lights or try to walk around at night, so we start at the crack of dawn instead.

Wine bottles can have many shapes and colors. Sine we tend to use traditional shapes for specific wines the consumer can often tell just from the shape of the bottle what it is. But who decided this to begin with and why?