Now we're going to talk about types of white wines. Again white wines, the styles are dictated
by the regions they come from. I start off with my favorite region which is Burgundy.
Burgundy wines, mainly Chardonnay, in France they're rarely labeled wine, certainly the
Burgundy people rarely label the wine by the grape variety on there. They will label the
wine by the village from which it comes from. But if you're getting a Burgundy, it's normally
a Chardonnay. There is enough chance that you may be buying a Bourgogne Aligote which
is the second white wine variety from that region. They make lovely delicate style wines
to - from Chablis all the way through to expensive wines that are richer, and more powerful.
Saint Albains is an example, Puligny-Montrachet is another example. So Burgundy is the first
name you'll come across, they often use the word Bourgogne on the bottle. And then you
have the village name from which the wine comes from. In this case Saint Albains, and
in this case Chablis. Now when you buy your wines, when you're looking for white wine,
again this - they come in varieties, varietal wines like Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Riesling,
Pinot Grigio, so you can buy wines by variety. And the white wines come in single grape varieties.
Some wines actually blended, Semillon Sauvignon, you will get from Bordeaux and from the Hunter
Valley in Australia. That's a typical example for blended white wine. But in the main white
wines appear these days to be mainly single varietals. If you're looking at the style
of wine you want, geographically, areas like Chile and Argentina produce simple, light,
and sometimes you can get more richness in them but fairly easy drinking wines. Italy,
very food friendly wines, so they maybe show more acidity and more intense flavor profiles.
If you go to Australia for something like a Chardonnay, here's typically an Australian
Chardonnay, from Adelaide Hills, you would be getting often very intense Chardonnay,
with more oak in it. But the thing about oak in white wine is don't shy away from it. What
is very important about white wine is balance, the balance between the fruit, the acidity,
and any other ingredient like the oak. As long as they're in balance they make a great
wine to have. And in this case for Australian wines I expect more richness to come out,
more fruits to come out, something like a Burgundy I expect not just intense fruit,
more complexity, minerality, a range of flavors coming through there. Riesling as well as
Gewurtstraminer and Pinot Gris, you tend to find these wines in the longer bottles, being
made in Germany, north of France. You may get one or two from Italy. This happens to
be an Australian example. And New Zealand are also making great Rieslings as well. They're
light, they can be off dry or bone dry, so you need to be careful with these sort of
wines if you'd like a very dry wine, make sure you ask your wine merchant for a bone
dry wine. And that applies across the board. Some wines like Sauvignon are considered very
dry, where Chardonnays are slightly softer. But not off dry. Another wine which - the
white wine which comes across as sweet, is a Chenin Blanc. You can buy Chenin from the
Loire area. Chenin will have anything from an off dry taste to bone dry taste. You can
also have it almost to dessert sweetness, but it's still a wine to be used within - with
food or sipping. These are just some of the examples of white wines, there are hundreds,
literally hundreds of white wine grape varieties and this is just where your adventure takes
you. You could do the ordinary wines like Pinot Grigio and Chardonnay Sauvignon, or
you could do wines Riesling, Gewurtstraminer, the more exotic foies, or something like a
Pinot Gris from the Oregon Valley. So just keep your mind open, try as many different
white wine varieties as possible. Find what your favorites are, and then also find the
best wine varieties for the types of food you like, and then you will have a great enjoyment
experience with the different styles of wine.