Weekly Wine Quiz #105: Grape Trivia – Blends, Part 9
The Wine Quiz series is not meant to intimidate. The whole idea here is to have fun and learn something new. When answering the questions, it is fully encouraged to use all available sources of information, including Google or any other search engine. There are no embarrassing answers – the most embarrassing thing is not giving it a try…
Welcome to the weekend and your new wine quiz!
We are continuing our grape trivia series, focusing on the blends, even if it is a blend of 1. White, Red, Rosé, Sparkling, Still, Fortified and Dessert – all goes. Oh yes, and we will blend in some regions and even wineries as well, just to make it more fun.
Recently, we talked about sparkling, white and red blends. So how about sweet wines (blends, of course!) for today?
Let’s go!
Q1: Amarone, a powerful dry Italian wine, made out of the sun-dried grapes (appasimento), was actually a result of the accident (complete fermentation of all the sugar) during the process of making of the sweet wine in the same region. This sweet wine is still produced today, albeit in the very small quantities – but it used to be quite famous hundreds of years ago. Can you name this sweet wine?
Q2: These two red sweet wines are primarily made out of all three types of Grenache grapes – Noir, Gris and Blanc, but one of them also allows the use of Carignan grape. Can you name these two wines (I’m looking for the name of appellations, not particular producers) and also specify which one of the two allows the use of Carignan?
Q3: This rare red dessert wine is made out of Nebbiolo grapes, and one of its characteristics is incredible aromatics. Can you name this wine?
Q4: This sweet wine, while typically made from the single grape variety, might claim the prize of “ultimate blend”, as it represents a blend of wines of many different ages, potentially tracing hundreds years of history in some of the bottling. Can you name this wine and explain about “hundred years of history”?
Q5: This delicious dessert white wine is made by the famed red wine producer in Napa Valley. The wine is made from the single white grape variety, estate grown in Napa Valley, which is of German/Austrian origin (and it is NOT Riesling). Name the grape, the wine and the producer.
Good luck, enjoy the quiz and your weekend! Cheers!
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Talk-A-Vino 
1. recioto della valpolicella
2. banyuls allows carignan and maury. (ps…they both allow carignan)
3. barolo chinato
4. sherry. it is made using the solera process, a succession of containers are filled with the product over a series of equal aging intervals (usually a year). One container is filled for each interval. At the end of the interval after the last container is filled, the oldest container in the solera is tapped for part of its content, which is bottled. Then that container is refilled from the next oldest container, and that one in succession from the second-oldest, down to the youngest container, which is refilled with new product. This procedure is repeated at the end of each aging interval. The transferred product mixes with the older product in the next barrel.
Sherry solera
No container is ever drained, so some of the earlier product always remains in each container. This remnant diminishes to a tiny level, but there can be significant traces of product much older than the average, depending on the transfer fraction. In theory traces of the very first product placed in the solera may be present even after 50 or 100 cycles.
5.scheurebe. eisrebe. joseph phelps
Great work, Gene – very detailed answers!
1. Recito della Valpolicella
2. Banyuls AOC can be produced with Grenache, Carignan and a few other grape varieties. Maury AOC can also be produced with Grenache and Carignan among grape varieties. However, both are fortified wines so not sure if they count.
3. Probably Barolo Chinato? It’s the only Nebbiolo dessert wine I can think of.
4. If fortified wines are also considered sweet wines then I’d say Sherry. Different vintages are blended using a solera system. This leads to some Sherry blends containing a small amount of rather old wine. (I had to google this one..)
5. Joseph Phelps makes a sweet wine from Scheurebe called Eisrebe. (But in my opinion it’s silly to harvest grapes and then to freeze them. In Germany for example wineries are not allowed to produce ice wine by freezing the grapes after harvest – they must harvest already frozen grapes.)
Fun quiz 🙂 Looking forward to your answers.
Excellent work, Julian, as usual 🙂 My answers are coming on Wednesday.
1. Recioto
2. Banyuls
And for the rest I’m hopelessly uniformed. 🙂 Can’t wait for the answers!
Camille, thanks for playing! The answers are coming on Wednesday, as usual.
1. Recioto wine
2. Rasteau AOC- vin doux natural. Banyuls- uses carignan
3. Passito; sforzato di valtellina
4. Sherry- uses Solera system; a method of fractional blending: old wine is periodically refreshed with younger wine to ensure consistency.
5. Grape-Scheurebe, wine- Eisrebe, producer- Joseph phelps
Great answers, Jennifer, thanks for playing! My answers are coming on Wednesday
I stopped by to study some Italian wines, my weak point. Perhaps, I need another trip to Italy!
I have no anwers except for #1. Reicoto ..:(
Waiting for the answers….zzz
Trip to Italy is always apropo! The answers are coming out later on today.