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Alice King's wine course
Part 3: red wines

As you did for the white wine tasting, line up one wine from each of the grape varieties listed below so you can compare and contrast them and decide which are to your liking or otherwise. If, for example, you decide Cabernet Sauvignon is a favourite, for your next tasting you could then select examples from around the world and note the differences.

Taste them in order as the list goes from light to full-bodied.

Pinot Noir
This grape produces the famous wines of Burgundy, such as Gevrey Chambertin and Nuits Saint George.

Flavour. Pinot Noir has the distinctive aroma and flavour of strawberries and raspberries. Many classic tasting notes for this grape say it is ‘farmyardy’, which sounds strange but is an accurate description. Generally these wines are light or medium-bodied and are a nice introduction to red because they don’t taste as overpowering as many other popular varieties. It’s a classic choice for drinking with roasts – lamb, pork or chicken.

Where in the world? This is a difficult grape variety to grow and is therefore found in fewer places in the world than other grapes. Apart from Burgundy, look out for the dark French rosé wines produced in Alsace, and some very good light to medium wines from Bulgaria and Romania. Recently, some of the best examples of Pinot Noir have come from Chile, Oregon and California – these tend to be richer and slightly sweeter.

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