Another wine hill to die on: blends are not more complex than monocépages - The Athan Zafirov Wine Blog

Another wine hill to die on: blends are not more complex than monocépages

I remembered a wine hill to die on yesterday that I have encountered every now and then. I didn’t see a recent post about hills to die on so, why not start a new one. Here’s mine. Please let me know if you agree or not.

The wine hill I will die on is that blends are not more ‘sophisticated’ or ‘nuanced’ or ‘complex’ than monocépages. I have heard this from both experienced and novice drinkers. My rationalization is that wines contain dozens of chemical compounds that determine taste and mouthfeel (can you taste colour?). (Chemically even hundreds, but most are trace amounts.) Does it really matter if you have 50 chemical compounds in a wine or 100? I would say no. Does ‘value’ (I know, prices can be absurd, but let’s assume wines can be valued more or less objectively) have anything to say here? And since many of the most valuable wines are monocépages (DRC to name just the most obvious), they are clearly not valued less than blends. Or is there another quality that determines prices for monocépages (besides obvious ones such as limited supply for top sellers such as DRC)?

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For 15 years, Athan Zafirov has traveled the vineyards around the world and worked with some of the greatest chefs including Francois Duc and Alan Brown.

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