Our red and white wine grapes are especially suited for those who love to make home made wines. Choose from the many varieties of wine and table grapes listed below. Along with our DePalma label, we use our Baresi label. An age old family tradition which originated from Bari, Italy. Phone us for assistance when ordering. We're here to serve you!
California Wine Grapes
While most include California in the new world wine category, California could also be regarded as the newest old world wine country. After all, California winemaking traditions date back to the late 1700’s, when Spanish missionaries introduced winemaking to California from Mexico. The combination of almost 250 years of wine making traditions and experience, our modern-day drive for innovation and improvement, and an ideal climate to grow grapes, makes California one of the best places on earth to make outstanding wine.
California wines are well known for their high quality, reliability and diversity. California is one of the most diverse wine regions in the world, with almost 100 grape varietals grown in almost 100 viticultural areas, including dozens of different microclimates and soil types, as well as a very individualistic set of winemakers, many with international experience, which adds to and deepens that diversity.
-Courtesy of California Wines
Admirers of wine know that the type of grape from which wines are fermented will in large part determine the basic fruit-flavor characteristics, both aroma and taste, of the final product. As a result, wines of high reputation are often regarded as associated with a single grape variety, often referred to as a "varietal", especially in the english-speaking world.
Because of this, such grape-names as Cabernet Sauvignon for red Bordeaux, Sémillon and Sauvignon Blanc for Sauternes, Pinot Noir for red Burgundy and Chardonnay for white Burgundy, (etc), are now embedded in the "wine-speak" language. However these names can be misleading because they imply a precision that in reality is not present.
An example is that there is no such thing as "the" Pinot (Noir). In fact accuracy demands that it be referred to as "a" Pinot (Noir) because the name does not belong to a unique vine species but to what the french grower calls a "cépage", that is, a growth defined as a group of closely related but not quite identical vine varieties sharing the same genetic background; in this case a variety that research is increasingly revealing to be derived from a very ancient strain of V.vinifera with a currently generic name of "Pinot". These different strains of the Pinot cépage are technically known as "clones", usually individually identified by adding a secondary name that refers to a special characteristic, place name or clone developer etc. For example; it has been estimated that worldwide there is a minimum of 200 Pinot (Noir) clone versions currently, (1996), planted - including approximately 47 versions planted in the vineyards of Burgundy and nearby districts in France - resulting in a great variation of wine quality and ageing ability etc. The same sort of situation applies to many other strains of the "cépages nobles", or "noble varieties", such as the Riesling and others.
Another example is the assumption, commonly made, that the highly regarded red Bordeaux wines are made entirely from the Cabernet Sauvignon grape. In fact many of the famous "great crus" vineyards in Pomerol and St.Émilion contain none at all. It is mainly grown in the Médoc and Graves subdistricts and even there is only one of several vine varieties, recent figures showing that fully 40% of the grapes grown consist of Merlot. Normally the wine made from Cabernet Sauvignon is blended with wines made from such distantly related grapes as the Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and others. |
