Varietal or Appellation

"Varietal" - better "variety" - refers to the grape variety; there are a few hundreds (if not thousand) grown commercially around the world.

"Appellation" means "geografic provenance" of a given wine. If official, many appellations also rule the grape varieties permitted. In the Côte d'Or in Burgundy, i.e., whites wines can only be made from the chardonnay, and red wines from the pinot noir grape, while in Châteauneuf-du-Pape 13 varieties are permitted.

M.

] snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com (Ivan Debono) wrote: ] ] > I'm no wine expert and I was wondering what's the difference ] > between varietal and appellation. Or are just the same thing? ]

Getting ready to reply, but Michael has (as usual) done so admirably:

] "Varietal" - better "variety" - refers to the grape variety; there ] are a few hundreds (if not thousand) grown commercially around the ] world. ] ] "Appellation" means "geografic provenance" of a given wine. If ] official, many appellations also rule the grape varieties ] permitted. In the Côte d'Or in Burgundy, i.e., whites wines can ] only be made from the chardonnay, and red wines from the pinot ] noir grape, while in Châteauneuf-du-Pape 13 varieties are ] permitted.

How about Bourgogne Aligoté? :) Or Bourgogne Passetoutgrain, where up to 2/3 gamay is allowed? (The rest being pinot).

You know all this of course Michael, but I couldn't resist anyway.

-E