La bête noire As a wine grape, Pinot Noir is the bête noire of its family, Les Pinots—Blanc, Meunier, Gris and Noir. Pinot Blanc makes respectable wines from Alsace and Northern Italy; Pinot Gris, from the same places. Pinot Meunier is a mainstay in Champagne. But while Pinot Noir grows more widely, it does so much more unsteadily. In a sense, it is the Mae West of the famille Pinot. When it's good, it's very, very good. But when it's bad, it's as bad as bad gets. Pinot Noir mutates capriciously (over 230 strains exist, some polar opposites). It benefits [...]

Not only do Italian grape varieties frequently make for some of the world’s tastiest wines, but they also have some of the coolest names. Sangiovese, for example, comes from the Latin words sanguis Jovis, “the blood of Jove (Zeus).” Not at all a bad name for a red grape. The name Nebbiolo is thought to derive from the Italian word nebbia or “fog.” In the Langhe, a hilly area in Italy’s Piedmont, milk-white mists and vapors settle into the valleys during harvest time—hence, the name (made even more endearing because the diminutive suffix “-olo” makes Nebbiolo mean “little fog.”) Not [...]

One night, many hundreds of years ago, the grapevines cabernet franc and sauvignon blanc nuzzled up to each other, somewhere in the Bordeaux region of France, and made a baby. They took the first halves of each of their names and called the kid “cabernet sauvignon.” As with so many children, cabernet sauvignon has mightily outshone its parents. It is the most sought-after red wine grape on the globe and, unlike either of its parents, is planted in nearly every country that grows grapes into wine. It ripens later than either of its parents, developing more color, structure and flavor. [...]