From Sémillon we get some of the world’s great sweet wines and some of the world’s great dry wines. Like so many excellent, yet rather obscure grape varieties out there, it’s unlikely that it will ever reach the popular heights of Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay and Pinot Grigio. It doesn’t have that commercial appeal to succeed, but that for me is partly what makes it so interesting.

Wine fairs are great for this kind of thing. They are one of the ‘hazards’ you are faced with in the wine trade. There’s always some time, usually late afternoon, to go off and have some fun. Sample something intriguing that you’re not realistically in the market for. Something that stirs you inside, yet you wouldn’t dream of trying to sell in your home market.

I can recall myself trying Keith Tulloch’s Hunter Valley Semillon at the London Wine Fair last year. A terrific wine, light and fragrant, floral and zesty. Had we wanted it we could have taken this 94 point Halliday-rated wine to Ireland, but there simply isn’t the demand. It’s a shame, but people don’t want Hunter Valley Semillon.

I always think the supermarkets provide a pretty accurate indication of mass market demand, particularly when it comes to wine. The flavour of recent years has been Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, and sure enough the supermarkets have fed that demand. Oyster Bay was the star a few years ago. Now its inevitable decline is underway.

So what’s up next? Is it time for consumers to stand up and demand greater variety? Do we want to see Frappato, Pignolo or Moscophilero on the supermarket shelves? Don’t worry, I haven’t tried them either, but I sure would like to. Somehow I can’t see that happening, but it’s true that as consumers we dictate what becomes available to us.

Being a small and nimble independent, relatively speaking, we like to cater for a slightly more curious consumer. That’s part of our niche, and its part of what gets me excited about work everyday. I sell New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc by the bucket load, and I enjoy it, it’s still one of my favourites. But have someone ask for something a bit odd, or slightly off the beaten track, and I’m in my element. Helping that person open the door to a fun-filled land of discovery is almost as rewarding as discovering it for yourself.

Sémillon reminds me of that every time I drink it or hand sell it. An amazing wine with its own personality and such varied styles between Old World and New World, young and mature, tank fermented and oak aged. I feel, however, along with thousands of other great offerings, that for the masses, Sémillon becomes an ambitious step too far. Could it be too dry or too sweet? Could it be the low acidity, or the restrained nose? Or could it be that it doesn’t roll of the tongue as easily as Chardonnay and Sauvignon? Excuse me while I continue to ponder.

Click here to view our Sémillon and Sémillon blends (obviously some people still love them)

That is “Barbera” is a sweetheart, not “Barbara”. Although I don’t doubt that if your name is Barbara you are also a sweetheart.

Every week I seem to stumble across a new native Italian grape variety. It’s just one of the many things that keeps me curious about Italy. And it would seem that with every bottle I open, I’m tasting my way through hundreds of years of old worldly heritage.

Barbera is a grape variety that has caught my attention lately. I’ve known about it for a while, but for many wine drinkers it is still unfamiliar. It could have been much more popular today had it not been for some bad publicity in the mid-1980′s. A number of Barbera producers decided to add methanol to their wines, killing more than 30 people and blinding many more in the process. The fall in demand for Barbera allowed for Montepulciano to take the hot seat.

This story has echoes of Austria’s disastrous anti-freeze scandal around the same time. Whereas serious longer term damage was inflicted on the Austrian wine industry, the Italians escaped from this one with their reputation as a whole left reasonably intact. Lessons learned have led to a gradual revival of this Italian sweetheart, and hopefully before long it will be rolling off the tongue of wine guzzling enthusiasts as effortlessly as “Montepulciano”.

Thought to have originated in Monferrato, part of the Piemonte region in Northern Italy, Barbera is capable of very high yields, so pruning is important for producing the best fruit for the best wines. To soften the naturally high tannins, winemakers may age in oak, giving the wines an extra richness, with flavours of plummy black fruit and spice. Lighter styles boasting red fruits are also common. For me, Barbera, with its signature high acidity, is one to be enjoyed with food.

Take your pick. There’s plenty to choose from. Perhaps a crisp Chardonnay or the in-fashion Pinot Grigio? Maybe it’s red. What about a hearty Merlot or a fruity Pinot Noir? The second installment of ‘Wine for Dummies’ delves deeper into the basics of wine and we’ll take a peek at grape variety – probably the single biggest influence on the style of your wine.

Now, when I say a Chardonnay might have a whiff of citrus and banana, it doesn’t mean that the wine has been blended with banana puree and a carton of Five Alive. These aromas are a result of natural chemical reactions fused during the wine making process. They are likely to evolve and change with age, and contact with air once the bottle has been opened.

Remember that there are numerous other factors that are responsible for variation among wines of the same varietal, such as climate and wine making processes, but don’t worry about these just yet.

Another one for the record. Think of acidity as biting into an under ripe orange. It’s the high acid level that makes your face screw up like a bulldog. When an orange is left to ripen properly, the acid levels fall and is replaced with sugars, giving sweetness as opposed to tartness. Imagine tannin, which comes from the skin of the grape, as the mouth drying sensation you get when you drink black tea. It’s acidity and tannin that help good wines age. Most won’t have an appropriate balance of these two, allowing the wine to live for only two or three years before declining.

Here are two grapes you’ll be very familiar with, each giving very different wines:

Sauvignon Blanc (white grape): Aromas of tropical fruit in warmer climates and cut grass or nettles, gooseberries and asparagus in cooler climates. Usually pale gold, sometimes greenish in colour, with crisp acidity, herbaceous notes (woody and foresty, like rosemary or parsley) and fruit; passionfruit being a common one.

Cabernet Sauvignon (black grape): On the nose you may get blackcurrant, green pepper, chocolate, mint, jammy fruit when young, cedar and tobacco with age. Deep purple/red in colour, you’ll often find moderate acidity and good fruit to balance it out (so one shouldn’t be overpowering), firm tannins and good length. A good Cabernet should have plenty going on in the palate, with length to follow, so you’ll still be tasting it a few seconds, or longer, after swallowing.

You might observe some wine buffs swirling a glass and rhyming off twenty different aromas from sawdust and cat’s pee, to diesel and new shoes. Take no notice. There’s no right answer. What ever you experience from it, that’s what really matters.

Wine is one of the most subjective topics around, and if you want to learn along the way, swirl the glass (unpretentiously) to release the aromas, stick your nose in and say the first thing that comes to mind. Anyone is capable of training their senses and practice makes perfect. There are wines you’ll die for and others you’ll hate. If you don’t like it, ask yourself what it is that you don’t like about it. Deciphering this also helps the learning process and will make you sound a lot less ignorant.

If you’re having problems finding the honeysuckle in a Riesling, check out the Essential Wine Tasting Guide. I picked these up in Australia last year and I keep it by my side every time I taste. It lists 21 of the most common grape varieties and the aromas and flavours you could potentially get from each one. So go on, get tasting..!

The “Wine for Dummies” series has come about after receiving a request from one of our dear Twitter friends, Andrea (@silverspoon). The aim is to make the subject of wine as uncomplicated and accessible as possible. As mentioned before, a big part of our identity is education and our range has been designed to cater for beginners and winebuffs alike, at affordable price points. With a little bit of knowledge you can start to enjoy wine more, and if you haven’t already, break away from the clutches of bulk specialists Blossom Creek & co.

Each week for the foreseeable future, we’ll do a short post on wine essentials, starting with some very basic wine facts. Every wine you taste is different and there are three main factors that attribute to this: What? Where? How?

What? Firstly the grape variety. Yes, you know – your Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and so on. 99% of the grapes we use are from the species Vitis vinifera, the colours, aromas and flavours of each resulting wine differing from one another. If you’re not convinced you could tell the difference between, say, a Chardonnay and a Sauvignon Blanc, try them side by side and you’ll realise just how good your palate is.

The all-important second factor is Where? ‘Terroir’ is a term used by the French. It could be described as a sense of place, but it essentially relates to environmental factors. The soil (chalk, limestone, pebbles?) the macroclimate (including rainfall per annum) and the microclimate within each vineyard (such as aspect of the vines to the sun). These will all affect the resulting wine – not just theory, but fact. For example, too much rain may lead to grapes that are bloated, thus reducing the concentration of flavours, and large rocks in the soil may reflect heat towards the vines helping the grapes to ripen more thoroughly. Many winebuffs insist that the nutrients and chemical components of the soil where the vines are grown can be noticed in the final product.

How? Lastly, we have human intervention in the vineyard and during the winemaking process. Viticulture is the skill of growing grapes. The farmer may control the irrigation within the vineyard, prune the vines to improve concentration in the remaining grapes, and/or deliberately plant the vines where they will receive the most sunlight in order to ripen appropriately. When it comes to harvest, the grapes can be harvested by hand or machine, before being crushed and fermented in oak barrels or stainless steel tanks. It’s during the fermentation process that the wine produces alcohol.

As this is just an introduction to wine, we’ll go into further detail in due course, so check back for our second part of “Wine for Dummies” next week. In the meantime, always remember the golden rule: Wine is for enjoyment first, and appreciation second. So have fun and enjoy as responsibly as possible..!