Re: Field Blend Percentage

I've always assumed that it was the volume of the various wines in the bottle. In other words if it's 60% cabernet sauvignon, 40% merlot in a .75 liter bottle, 450ml is wine made from cabernet sauvignon, and

But I'll admit that that's just an assumption, and I don't know for sure. I'd appreciate a correction if that's wrong.

Here's an interesting article on "field blends".

I was always told that the term field blend was more about blending during vinification and not so much about site specific vines so what you put in the fermentation tank was what you ended up with in the wine as opposed to vinification of separate varietals then blending afterwards to achieve a certain flavor profile.

Interesting, thanks, but it doesn't answer the question. Bradley Gray asks "Explain what a field blend is," and then the others dance around the question without answering it. Or if they do, I missed it.

Here is what a field blend is not: grapes segregated by varietal, picked at different times, fermented seperately and assembled into a final blend. The French have a word for that: assemblage. If Ridge, for example, has different plots for different grapes and assembles a blend after vinification, this may approximate a the effect of a field blend but is technically an assemblage. To use Chateauneuf-du-Pape as an example, a large vineyard my be dominated by one grape variety (syrah, counoise, grenache) and include small quantities of other grapes, difficult to identify because of age that are picked together and vinified in the same tank. This is technically and classically a field blend.

Mark