Reading an American Wine Label

  Buying wine is a risky proposition. There is some information on the label, but most of us don't know what it all means. There's the winery name or maybe it's just a label belonging to another winery and made in a location where wine under other labels is made. There's the vintage telling you when the grapes were grown though more specifically the year the grapes were harvested (that matters in the Southern Hemisphere). There's a growning location that's likely to be a county, a grape growing region (usually within one county), and maybe a vineyard name. Even the alcohol level has a fairly wide range it can fall in depending on which side of 14% alcohol it falls. See, it gets complicated.

  Below are the basics.

A pretty wine label

  Don't buy it because of the picture of a bird, because you like the colors, or for the cute name (who could resist Pink Puppy Love? This is strictly marketing crap and if they're going to this much trouble you have to wonder about the wine in the bottle.

Winery Name

  You'd think this would be pretty straight-forward, but no. It could be the name of an actual brick-and-mortar winery or a label. By label I mean it's a wine brand name made by someone else. Could be like Duckhorn's Decoy known for making good wines at good prices. Could be one of Gallo's 50 or 60 labels they own and made in a wine factory where dozens of their other labels are made. Could be a one-time shot by someone who bought some grapes or even wine, found a winemaker to finish it up and bottle it, then put his own label on it. And it just might be a good wine at a great price.

  Some examples from Sonoma County:
Foppiano Winery - Owned and operated by the same family for 125 years.
Kenwood Vineyards - Owned by a French spirits and wine company.
Frei Brothers Winery - Gallo. Not a winery per se, but part of one of Gallo's many "tank farms."
Cameron Hughes - A wine negociant, headquartered in San Francisco, they make many Sonoma County wines along with wines from around the state and even around the world.

Gallo's Sonoma County tank farm from Google Maps

Vineyard location
  Does a vineyard name, maybe even a section of a vineyard, Estate, or an appellation mean the wine is better? It means it's more expensive. Maybe it is better, but there's no guarantee.

  Sometimes it's legit in that you might find something like Joe's Vineyard, Eastern Block. Not Eastern Block as in the old Soviet Union, :) but a section of the vineyard that faces east -- for morning sun. Is that better? I dunno. The winemaker is giving you a certain expression of the fruit (terroir). It might be something you care about, but probably only if you know the winery pretty well already.

Alcohol level

  I just mentioned in the first paragraph that a wine labeled at 14.5% isn't necessarily 14.5%. It will give you a general idea of the style you're getting. For instance, if you see two Pinot Noirs; one says 13.8% and the other 14.9% you will have two completely different wines here. Which do you want? A very general explanation would be the lower alcohol wine is a better food wine while the higher a better sipper. This is something you'll figure out with a bit of experience.

  If you're looking at something like a Riesling and it has a very low alcohol percentage, like 10.5%, there it's probably sweet as not all of the sugars in the grapes were converted to alcohol. Some was left to make the wine sweet.

Grape variety

  If it doesn't say Chardonnay or Cabernet Sauvignon or any other grape variety don't discount the wine. Some very good wines are blends of two or more grape varieties. If the wine isn't at least 75% of one variety you have to call it something else. The wine might be called Joe's White, Meritage, or the one I had a few nights ago, called Gravelbed Red. So how do you know what grapes are in it? If that info isn't on the label check the winery's website because they should tell you.

Reserve, Natural, or Old Vine

  Don't buy a wine just because of these words on the label. Why? Because there are no laws regulating their usage so they don't necessarily mean anything. Not saying don't buy, just be a skeptic.