When you walk into a wine shop do you walk towards the French wine section or away from it?
A friend told me recently that they walk away from the French wine section which I think is crazy because I tend to head right towards it! For starters, it was the French region of Burgundy which made me fall in love with wine to begin with!
I think that French wines are absolutely incredible! They are known as the benchmark of wine excellence with other winemakers in the world who will compare their wines to French wines. (Ever heard of a “Burgundian” style Pinot or a “Bordeaux” style blend?)
And yes French wines can be expensive, but they also have some amazing budget friendly wines!
So, I’m introducing you to the amazing world of French wines. I could talk about the wines of France for hours so today will be a basic introduction to French Wine. This is meant to instill the confidence you need to visit your nearest wine shop and pick up a bottle to try.
In this episode I’m diving into 5 of the most popular regions of French wines, how to read the label on the bottle so you can understand what to expect in that bottle of wine and in general making French wines less intimidating and more accessible to you.
So, if you have asked yourself where do I start with French wines this episode is for you. Grab a glass and let’s learn together!
And don’t forget to head over to https://www.corkandfizz.com/ and scroll all the way to the bottom to join my mailing list where you will then receive my 15 wines for under $15 Guide!
Episode Highlights:
• An introduction to French wine
• List of the 11 major wine regions of France
• How to read the label on the bottle to feel confident when buying French wine
• Overview of the French wine classification system
• What is AOP in French wine
• What is IGP in French wine
• What is Vin de France
• What grapes are in Bordeaux wine
• The 5 subregions within Bordeaux
• What grapes are in Burgundy
• The 4 Sub-Appellations and 4 designations of Burgundy
• What does Bourgogne mean on a wine label
• What is Premier Cru Burgundy
• What is Grand Cru Burgundy
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[Music] interested in learning about wine but not sure where to start you’re in the right place welcome to the Cork and Fizz guide to Wine podcast I’m your host Haley Bulman and I’m so glad you’re here I’m a wine enthusiast turned wine educator and founder of the seattle-based wine tasting business corkin Fizz it’s it is my goal to build your confidence in wine by making it approachable and lots of fun you can expect to learn everything from how to describe your favorite wine to what to pair with dinner tonight and so much more whether you’re a casual wine siipper or a total cork dork like myself this podcast is for you so grab yourself a glass and let’s Dive [Music] In welcome to another episode of the Cork and Fizz guide to Wine podcast I’m very excited for today’s episode before we get into it I want to give you a quick reminder if you are not on my mailing list yet I would love for you to join when you join you will get a free guide a Shopping Guide that has 15 of my favorite wines under $15 so it’s a it’s a pretty good guide uh it’s a great for you know when you’re having friends over and you want to buy some good wine but don’t want to spend a lot of money so you can get that head to my website go to www.c corand fizz.com scroll down to the bottom and there’ll be a little section where you can join the mailing list I send out a Weekly Newsletter just with fun wine stuff reminding you to you know enjoy life and have some good wine so you’ll enjoy it all right today we are talking French wine now I could go on and on about French wine this episode could be out hours long so this is meant to just be a general overview I basically want to introduce you to the world of French wine and make it a little less intimidating and make it easier for you to shop French wine I was recently talking to someone the other day and they mentioned that when they go shopping for wine they steer clear of most of Europe’s wines and that’s crazy to me because when I’m shopping for wine that’s almost like the direction I walk in I think French wine really incredible they’re they’re basically The Benchmark wines you know of today and they have some at amazing prices this is where like I would go to have budget friendly wine I would go to French wine yes there are some that exist that are very pricey but there are great bottles on the cheaper end as well so without further Ado let’s get into the basics of France so France might not be the very first region to make wine but they’ve certainly had the most influence on wine making around the world as I mentioned before many French wines are considered Benchmark wines and basically what wine makers will compare their wines to if you’ve ever heard someone say a this is a Burgundian style Pino Noir or this is a Bordeaux style blend the burgundy and Bordeaux are both regions in France and essentially The Benchmark for those styles of w wine France is second only to Italy in wine production they produce an estimated 8 billion bottles of wine every year yes that’s billion it is the third most planted country for vines in the world with an impressive 7 192,000 hectares if you’re curious a Hector think about it as about 2 and a half acres of land they export 30% of the wines they produce but they are also the third highest cons consumers of wine per capita so they send a lot of wines out which is why it makes sense that you see French wine all around the world but they also consume a lot of wine so they’re only behind Portugal and Italy in terms of highest consumption per capita there are technically over 200 unique grape varieties in France but more importantly than the grapes are the wine regions and so there are 11 major wine regions that span a variety of climates and territories in France the full list of those 11 major wine regions in order of physical size include the ladok rousan that’s just one name I know it sounds like two things ladok rousan Ron Valley Bordeaux provance lir Valley burgundy or in in French it’s burgon champagne alas B Jura and Corsica we will be discussing five of those regions during this podcast like I said I don’t think I could handle going through all of that in one podcast so we’re going to be going through five of the most well-known and most popular regions that’ll be Bordeaux burgundy champagne lir Valley and the rone Valley now if you enjoy this and you want me to do a part two to cover those additional regions let me know Reach Out me on Instagram at corken fizz or send me an email Haley corken fizz.com I would absolutely love to do a part two here and cover those additional regions okay one of the most important things to keep in mind when buying French wine and what will help you to becoming more confident with French wine is to know that most French wines are labeled by region or Appalachian and this region is what tells you what to expect in the wine unlike like in the US or many other New World regions like Australia South Africa South America Canada where you can grow basically anything right in these regions in the US you could grow anything you wanted anywhere and still put the name of the region that you grew The Grapes on the bottle no matter what there really aren’t a lot of rules and maybe someone listening has found one rule but there really aren’t like in wala wala Washington you will see a lot of SRA but that doesn’t mean that you can’t make a tempero in Wala Wala and put the region wala wala on the label right that is not the case in France in France each Appalachian has a set of rules that dictate what grapes are inside the bottle so if it says burgundy on the bottle there’re only certain grapes that you can make that wine out of so when you look at a label one of the first things you should pay attention to is the name of the region where the wine is from the other thing you could look at is the producer like who makes the wine but I’ll be honest a lot of times when I’m shopping for French wine I look for the region first because it tells me what to expect in the bottle and then I’ll look at the producer so I can learn a little bit more I’ll be spending the majority of today’s podcast going over what the major wine grape varieties are that are produced in each wine region of France so you can slowly start to learn what to expect and to connect a certain region that you see on a label to a certain style of wine the last thing I want to talk about before going into the different French wine regions are French wine classifications so French wines and wine labels are controlled by a wine classification system called Appalachian dein pro pro I tried it I don’t speak French uh but short it’s aop the aop is essentially a hierarchical system of rules and regulations and they determine where the wines are produced what they are made of and their level of quality so there are three primary classification tiers in the system so the top is just aop uh what the whole system is called and so this if a wine is aop this means that the wine came from a specific regulated region which could be a large area like Bordeaux for example or a specific area within that so this could be like the hot Mel within bordeau each region has its own rules for things like grapes allowed in the wine we’ve talked about that a lot but they also have rules for the quality of Those Grapes how The Vineyards are planted wine making and the aging process right so all of these rules have to be followed followed in order to put the name of that aop that region on the bottle so all the regions that will be discussing are aops or aoc’s both kind of are used interchangeably all right after that is the igp this is the indication Geographic Pro or sometimes it’s called VDP which is the Vin de p and igp is often a larger area and they have slightly less regul than the aop you’ll notice that igp wines are often labeled with the grape varieties actually so this is going to be different than our aop or aoc’s where it’s only the region is the only thing you find on the label the term vind P which I mentioned is used interchangeably here with igp is actually the preu version of igp so you’ll find wines sometimes labeled with vind pis and they’ll also say like the region that it’s from so like vind pise Du Val so basically saying like oh this is a vind p from the lir valley this igp or vind p is also the same thing as PGI which stands for protected geographical indication that’s just the English term for it okay lastly so we had aop AOC basically meaning the same thing at the top that’s our top level they have the most rules then you have the igp or vend P at the very bottom you have Vin de France and this is literally just wine of France the most basic Regional quality labeling wines with vin France can originate from literally anywhere and be a blend of multiple regions oftentimes wines that don’t follow the rules of a specific region so let’s say that they grow a grape and made a wine from that grape in a region where uh that grape is not allowed they will have to call their wine Vin de France so this doesn’t mean that these are always like low quality wines they’re just the wines that don’t necessarily follow the rules and like I said earlier can also be a blend of grapes from multiple areas all right so now we have the classifications out of the way let’s focus on our five most common most popular regions of France and like I said my goal after this is for you to kind of just have a general understanding of what grapes are grown in that region and kind of what styles of wine you can expect so when you go shopping it’ll be a little easier you’ll recognize these regions on the B model and kind of know what you’re shopping for so starting off we have Bordeaux Bordeaux is located in the southwest of France just off the Atlantic Ocean along the dur River while Bordeaux is most known for making red wines and specifically red blends they also make really bright refreshing white wines and delectable sweet wines the red blends are usually Cabernet saon dominant or Mero dominant remember when I say say a grape dominant like Mero dominant it means it’s a blend of different grapes where Mero is the top percentage out of all the grapes you’ll also find small amounts of camet frunk malbeck and petite verox in these Bordeaux Blends there are other grapes allowed these days they’ve actually recently added additional grapes which is very unheard of but we’ll save that conversation for another day when we do a little more of a deep dive into bordeau talking about the white wines the white wines are usually blends of svon Blanc semon and muscade mus mus it has two L’s but an e at the end so we’re gonna go muscadel is what it looks like I don’t know if that’s how you’re supposed to say it again I don’t speak French all right and then so we have Reds we have whites and then also dessert wines and these are made with the same grapes as the white wines but in a very different style in terms of different regions when you think of Bordeaux the easiest way to think of it is that it’s split into two regions on either side of this river that flows through Bordeaux so you have the Left Bank on the left of the river when you’re looking at a map and these are going to be where all your Cabernet saon dominant red blends are you’ll also find white Blends here so again remember that saon Blanc seon musel these will all be labeled Bordeaux Blanc right and then your Reds I think those are typically just labeled Bordeaux but you could maybe see Bordeaux Rouge written somewhere on the Left Bank so again we’re on the Left Bank still so our one region you can find sub regions within this area and this is where it gets to be a little more complicated because some wines can just be labeled by their sub region so typically if you flip the bottle over the label on the back will still say the larger region like Bordeaux so some of the sub regions here hot Mido mid which is m e d o c I’m not pronouncing the C because I don’t think you’re supposed to and grvs so these will all be most likely those those red blends or the boureau Blanc now you have the Left Bank take a guess as to what the other major region is yeah it’s the right bank right we’re on the right side of the river this is where you’re going to find those Mero dominant red blends and I should say here as well while I’m talking about there being a lot of Blends in Bordeaux it is possible to find WI that are 100% a single grape varietal it’s not as common but it is possible so you could find on the Left Bank a 100% Cabernet Savon and on the right Bank you can find a 100% Mero wine it’s just not quite as common now on the right Bank you’re not going to find from what I can tell there isn’t as much white wine coming from this area if any so we’re just going to kind of focus on the red for our right bank and some of the sub regions Within the right bank would be St emilion and pomal and again these are regions within that region you might find those on the label now two other regions within Bordeaux to talk about we have the Entre Dum which in French literally means just between two Seas so it’s kind of meant to be like between the two rivers and also between the two left and right Bank Regions this is where you’re going to find some really delicious white blend I actually have a Bordeaux Blanc on that 15 wines under $15 guide that is from this Entre dare area really really lovely white wines just fresh goes really well with salads and vegetables and just yeah A really lovely wine the final region is Saturn or as I found it written Saturn again I don’t speak French Saturn are our sweet wines and these are wines that are made from those white grape varieties Savon Blanc seon and muscadel but something happens with these grapes and it’s such a unique thing I could do all I should do a whole podcast on it but it’s this idea it’s called btis or the like kind of salang term for it is Noble Rot and it is actually a mold that forms on the grapes and what happens is uh when it’s really humid so this area is right along the river and the it’s just like it has a certain climate where like not along the river doesn’t always mean you’re going to get mold but it’s also just very like humid and that like moisture in the air sticks around and so this mold forms and it’s specifically buritis there are other molds that are not good but btis is btis can be good if we’re aiming for it and so what happens is this mold forms and then it causes these little pin-sized holes in the grapes to form and when that happens it’ll encourage all the water to evaporate from the grape and so it essentially raisins the grape and so you’re left with these little raisins hanging on the vine and so they will let that happen in this region in Saturn and Bordeaux and then they will go out and harvest the raisins essentially press them for the little bit of juice that they have which is going to be super concentrated lots of sugar going to be in there but it’s still going to have some really nice acidity they’re going to press that and then they’re going to make that into a sweet wine and because there is so much sugar when the fermentation process happens which again remember is yeast plus sugar equals alcohol and carbon dioxide this yeast is going to try to eat the sugar but there’s going to be too much sugar and the yeast will die before it can eat it all so you end up with a sweet wine and these are some of the top sweet wines of the world think like honey ginger some really lovely pear Peach and they have a nice acidity to them so while they are rich they’re not overwhelming I highly recommend if you haven’t had a chance to try one they typically come in these smaller size bottles so the 375ml just because again they’re super rich but the nice thing is because it has that sweetness you can open the bottle and as long as you put the cork back in and put it in the fridge it’ll last longer than your typical bottle of wine at least two to 3 weeks and you could potentially go a little longer do you ever feel like you’re stuck in a rut doing the same old thing day in and day out you wake up go to work come home go to bed and repeat when life gets busy it can be easy to fall into that routine and forget how important it is to prioritize joy and fun but what if I told you there was a way to break out of that cycle a way to bring more excitement and Adventure into your life and it involves one of the most wonderful ful things in the world wine introducing my court crew virtual tasting Club this is not your ordinary wine club this is a community of people who are passionate about exploring new flavors learning about different wine Styles and having fun along the way each month we’ll select two styles of wine to focus on we’ll taste them together virtually all while learning more about the regions that the wines are from and the great that make the wine you’ll also have the opportunity to meet wine makers Somali and other wine professionals through our monthly community events but it’s not just about the wine it’s about breaking out of your routine trying new things and having a little fun imagine being able to impress your friends at your next dinner party with your newfound wine knowledge feeling confident when you walk into a wine shop knowing exactly what to look for and what you’ll enjoy Joy imagine adding a little bit of excitement to your everyday life so why not do something for you come join the cork crew virtual tasting club and start exploring the Endless Sea of Discovery and joy that is the world of wine sign up at my website Cork and fizz.com slthe cork crew and don’t forget to use code wi11 to get your first month free and now back to the show okay moving on to our next region this is the region uh that made me fall in love with wine this is one of my first favorite uh styles of wine and that is burgundy so you’ll also see the French word for this region buron which is spelled b o u r g o g NE e this region is in eastern France and it’s all about P Noir and chardonay so the region is a pretty I think like a a long skinny kind of region and it’s broken up into a couple different sub appalachi so just knowing burgundy is p Noir and Chate will get you really far so this is kind of like the The Next Step this a little bit more advanced so some of the sub appal you have SH now sh is one of the more complicated sub regions of burgundy because you won’t always find the term burgundy written on a sh bottle okay so when you see sh know that it is from burgundy and chibbles are always white wines and they’re always made with Chardonnay and this is the region that’s furthest North in burgundy so it’s going to be the coolest region which means you’re going to get a very lean mineral style Chardonnay you’ll actually be surprised you might think it tastes more like saon Blanc than chardonay so if you’re you’re not a chardonay fan try a shbl and then tell me you’re not a Chardon fan okay all right as for our other regions these are ones that are further south of sh and these are all actually touching each other kind of I’ll go down um from north to south where sh is further up and there’s actually some distance between Shi and these other regions so then we have the Kotor which is further broken down into the kots and this is an area most famous for the red burgundy so Pino Noir and then the other part of the kot or is the coat de bone and this is the area most famous for white burgundy though I will say in both kotab bone and kot NES you will find both red and white burgundy so again red burgundy is always pinoir white burgundy is chardonay you’ll also just below the code to or is the code Shalon this region has Chardon P Noir but also a white grape called aligote and so if a bottle of white wine comes from burgundy and is made with aligote and not shardon it has to say aligote the name of the grape on the bottle lastly the furthest the south region is the maon this is a great region for budget friendly white burgundy so they make I think primarily almost I think it’s entirely Chardonnay and it’s a little bit more of a warmer style so it’s going to be a little bit more fruit forward a little bit Bolder but it’s still going to have that nice acid and nice sharpness that all of burgundy is known for there is one other style of wine that I want to mention here and that wine is called a past I’m not going to spell it for you cuz I don’t have it in front of me I was just thinking of it but this is a really unique wine I didn’t know it existed until I visited a local wine shop here in Seattle that specializes in French wine but a pastu pra is a red wine from burgundy that is actually a blend of a grape called game and Pina Noir it’s a really beautiful wine not a lot of producers make it but if you do find it it is worth a try it’s it’s really fun to get to try that g p Noir our blend last thing to talk about in burgundy before we head to our next region is the designation so this is a classification system it is far less complicated complicated than Bordeaux in my opinion so I thought I’d cover it really quick and so this basically just lets you know the quality of the wine and so there are four levels kind of think about it as a pyramid because the higher we go up it’s the higher quality but also the fewer bottles there are in that style so our very bottom level of the pyramid is just the buron level this is just burgundy level this is just Regional the whole and you can get grapes from anywhere within burgundy and you can call it a burgundy classified wine okay that’s our bottom level buron Next Level Up is vage and so this is wine from a village or commune in burgundy and there are about 44 different Villages and these are going to be larger then like a Vineyard plot which is what the the next two levels of our pyramid will be talking about so the larger region a little bit more um specific than our burgundy region it’s Village so that’s our next level up above that this is when we start to get into fairly expensive burgundy all right so if we’re trying to save some money you stick in that Village and burgundy level but our next level up is called Premier crew or you might find on a bottle it’s just written as the number one um with ER next to it and crew Cru these are exceptional plots within burgundy there are about 640 of these and these are literally just specific Vineyards throughout burgundy the real trick is to find a wine shop that knows of Vineyards next to the premier crew and next to what’s going to be our top level um of the pyramid as well CU in these you basically get like a wine that’s very similar because it’s grown literally right next to it but it just doesn’t have the designation these designations were decided many years ago and have not really Chang since then so who knows if they’re you know how how specific they actually are okay so that that third level for a pyramid as we went up is Premier crew and the very top the very absolute best which I have had probably one or two of these and they are really damn good is gr crew so Grand crew and there are 33 of these and these are all located in the kot or so in that region not furthest North which is sh but just below that in the kosor and these are meant to be the absolute best of the best all right let’s move on to our next region huh let’s head to Champagne this region is north of burgundy and it’s actually the region that’s furthest North in France for growing wine it has the coolest growing climate and because of that they can struggle to ripen their grapes enough but they figured out the way to get around this is to make sparkling wine and so they became known as the best sparkling wine region in the world they need that acidity that under ripen grapes have to really produce lovely sparkling wines so the grapes here in Champagne grapes that can be used in a champagne wine are Chardonnay pen Noir sound familiar right and this one red grape that you may not have heard of before it’s called Pino mun and so again wine Styles here they do make a couple non-bubbly wines or still wines but you’re really not going to find those they make sparkling wine and they make sparkling wine in the champagne style or in the traditional style and the way this is made just super quick is that you make a regular wine so you follow the fermentation process add some yeast have the sugar in the grapes and then produce a wine you know the yeast produces alcohol and then the carbon dioxide is left off into the air we don’t need it so we have a regular wine then that wine is put into the champagne bottles they add more yeast and they add more sugar and then they put a cap on the bottle and they basically let fermentation happen again but this time inside the bottle with a cap on it and since the cap is on it when we’re making our uh wine the fermentation process again you have yeast eats sugar produces alcohol and carbon dioxide that carbon dioxide is trapped inside the bottle and thus gives us our sparkling wine uh in terms of different styles that you’ll see here in Champagne you may notice a wine a lot of people make note of the Vintage Champagnes that basically just means that the all of the grapes that were used to make that wine were harvested in the same year versus a non-vintage wine which is what most Champagnes are they will maybe say Envy on them or they simply won’t say a year on them anywhere and that just means that the grapes were harvested for multiple different years and they can do this because they’ll again remember they make that first wine and then they can actually blend the first wines for many different years when they go to make the sparkling version you might also see the term Blanc de blancs or Blanc de Noir the Blanc de Blanc means it is a white wine made from white grapes so that is all chardonay versus a Blanc de Noir will be made from all P Noir and Pino M so it’s only using the red grapes otherwise a wine label just champagne can use any of chardonay pinoir and P simple right champagne’s not too bad okay now we’re heading into our far more complicated region which is the lir valley again this region in of itself could could make its own podcast then it will someday so we’re just going to cover the overview of it so that when you see certain regions you can have an idea of what wine is inside so this is the one of the largest regions in France and it follows the longest river of France called the lair River it’s located in the Northwest starting at the Atlantic Ocean so we are north of Bordeaux here there are four sub regions so going west to east you have the P NES Anu samur toin and the Centre and these are also sometimes separated into the lower lir which is the pis NES the middle lir which is on sore and toin and the upper lir which is the Cent this doesn’t make sense because the upper lir actually looks lower than the lower low on a map but it’s because it follows the the river so the very beginning of the river is considered the lower lir and that’s why the higher up on the river that’s the upper lir now each of these regions is further broken into smaller sub regions because yeah we love to learn all this don’t we and so these are the things that you’re actually going to want to look for on the bottle so in the lower L we’re going to start from the west and head east so in the lower lir in the panes one of the top regions here that you’re going to find is Musa and it’s spelled like muscadet it’s m u s c a d t this wine is made from a grape called melon or Melon de buron it’s going to be a bracing mineral white wine this wine is perfect to pair with oysters and anything Seafood it’s one of my favorites one of my go-tos honestly for any dinner but especially any seafood dinner all right again we’re just doing an overview I’d love to tell you more but we go to we got to keep a move on all right our next region uh as we’re heading to the anju samur region we can basically break this up into two regions and you’ll never guess what they’re called the Anu and the samour so in the anju if you ever see this on a label uh it’s spelled a NJ o u if it’s a white wine it’s going to be a Shannon Blanc and it can be either a dry AKA no sugar or an off dry style meaning it’s slightly sweet and one of the best ways to tell this um it doesn’t always work but it can work fairly well is the alcohol percentage so if it’s a lower alcohol percentage say under 12% there’s a good chance it’s going to be a slightly sweeter style of shanon Blanc versus an alcohol percentage above 12% you’re looking at more of a dry style if it’s a red wine or if it’s labeled on Jew Rouge that’s going to likely be a Cabernet Fran or it could be Cabernet saon or a blend of Cabernet Fran and Cabernet sanon the other wine that you’ll find in the anju is labeled anju G and that just means it’s a red wine made from game that one’s a little bit easier okay and then we have the samour and so samour is s a u Mur if if you see a white wine a samore Blanc this is going to be a Shannon Blanc and if you see a samour Rouge this is going to be a Cabernet Frank okay heading now into the terrain region uh there’s a couple sub regions within here so you have shenan c h i n o n and burgy which is b o u r gu u e i l definitely looks like bergy doesn’t it uh these two sub regions if you see these on a bottle it is a white wine you’re looking at a Shannon Blanc and if you see shinan or bur eye on a red bottle of wine it is a Cabernet frunk and then one of the other sub regions within terrain is called V you may have heard of this before it’s a very famous wine and this is a Shannon Blanc and same with our anju this can be sweet or dry so either ask when you’re buying the bottle at the wine shop look it up on an app like vivino or or look at that alcohol percentage to kind of give you a hint okay pH deep breath here we’re on to our last region within the L Valley and that is the upper L Valley and this is where you’ll find delicious Savon Blanc from s and poy fum which I learned you do not pronounce the two L’s in poy fum it looks like p o u i l l y and then fum is Fu M I had a Instagram reel a while back that got pretty popular and I think I said po fum and uh I got a lot I said ply fum and I got a little bit of a little bit of criticism on that so I’ve learned I’ve learn I learned a little bit I still don’t speak French so I know I sometimes butcher these names but I hope that gives you confidence to also sometimes just like go ahead say whatever it looks like it’s you know we can’t help it you know one language right like you can’t be expected to learn every other language when you’re learning about wine so if you’re if you’re at a wine shop you’re you’re reading off a restaurant menu don’t be afraid to say it wrong I say it wrong all the time and I call myself a wine expert so you know we’re fine so okay that last region s and po fum those are two different regions within the upper L Valley and they make S Blan white wines another grape grown in the L Valley um that I couldn’t find specifically where this is planted um but you’ll actually find malbeck here in the lir valley but it’s often called quot c t and that’s what you’ll find I’m pretty sure on the label if you’re looking for that Mal back all right we have made it to the last top region that I want to talk about and that is the ran Valley and we’re heading to warmer climates in southern France to visit the Ron Valley here so this region is split into two parts the North and the South the northern and southern Ron valleys are actually not right next to each other they’re actually over an hour’s Drive um apart and they really don’t have much in common the only reason they’re considered part of the same Valley is due to the ran River for which they’re name for and it doesn’t separate them but it flows through the two regions from northern rone to Southern rone now in the southern rone in terms of grapes that you’ll find for red grapes this is primarily SRA this is the top grape in in the highest percentage here that you’ll find and so generally find a northern rone red wine it is a SRA um in terms of white wine you’ll find VI Marson and rouson in terms of sub regions here so if you’re looking for a sarra from the northern R so you’re looking for a red wine from the northern rone you would see uh these different sub regions um there’s quite a few but the some of the top four are St Joseph Hermitage cots Hermitage which is actually c r o z s Hermitage and then kot Roy is another top one here so those are all sarra from the northern rone and then a top VI if you’re a fan of VI like me and you want to try some of the best of the best uh head to condr this is c o n d r i e u this is a really delicious Bu from the northern R now heading into the southern rone this region is very famous for the GSM blend if you’ve ever heard that before it means it’s a blend of the three red grapes ganache SRA and mued however this region has more than those three grapes um some of the other top grapes you’ll see so in terms of other Reds you can also find CSO and kinan in terms of white you’ll find ganach Blanc Marson rousan bur Blanc VI Peak poool and that’s not even all of them uh in terms of wine styles most of the wine coming out of the Southern rone is going to be a coone this is a wine that has up to 18 different wine varieties or grape varieties that can be added to it and you’ll find both a coone Rouge so it’s a red version of a coone typically a GSM blend here so granach s mued but they can have a blend of any of the other grapes in there you can also find a Cerone Blanc that is the white version of this and then of course you’re really not going to find the red grapes in there though you could just not have the skin contact but it’s just not really going to happen um these are going to be mostly Marson rousan VI um and that bur Blanc Southern ran also has another very famous wine region in it and that is the shot to pop and this again is going to be a blend they make both a red and a white wine and they can blend I think it’s those same 18 different varieties I might be slightly off by the number but it’s a large percent or large LGE number of different varieties that they can blend into that all right and that is the ran Valley and that is the end of our overview of the top five regions within France and just our general overview of French Wines in general let me know if you would like a part two of this I hope you found this helpful I’ve just found that it it to be so much easier to shop for French wines and to feel more confident about them when I know what to expect and so I know this this uh podcast was just really chalk full of a lot of names and regions and and different grape varieties but I hope you were able to kind of some of those things will start to stick I I was talking to my mom the other day who listens to all these podcasts shout out to Mom but she mentioned that like you know sometimes some of it can go over our heads and feel a little overwhelming when we’re talking about wine because there’s just so much to know but the more you listen to it and the more you hear it things will start to stick and I couldn’t agree more even I when as I’m still learning about about wine I’ve got this great background and and knowing all of this but there’s still plenty of times that things go over my head and I just you know you just got to be okay with that and then over time you’re going to hear things you know multiple multiple times and soon maybe you’ll recognize you’ll be out shopping you’ll see a bottle labeled Cody roin you’ll be like oh I remember that that was from that podcast and it’s uh what’s the grape in that and you can kind of look it up on your phone and be like oh yeah that’s right that’s a sarra right and you can kind of start to make these connections don’t expect all of it to stick at once but hopefully over time you can kind of learn more and it can also guide you in figuring out what questions you need to answer so like I said really hope you enjoyed this would love to do a part two would also be happy to do this for other regions throughout Europe as I know France is not the only place that labels their Wines By regen all right I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Cork and Fizz guide to Wine podcast if you loved it as much as I did I would love it if you could take a quick second to rate it and leave a review don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode I release new episodes every Wednesday in next week’s episode I have a very special interview I will be interviewing NFL star Sydney rice that’s right you heard me NFL star and entrepreneur Tim Lenahan talking about their Washington based Winery dosier wine you are not going to want to miss that thanks again for listening and as a thank you I’d like to share my free Shopping Guide 15 wines under $15 to get that go ahead and head to my website corand fizz.com scroll down to the bottom and join my mailing list [Music] cheers