What Wine Names Mean

Selection from The Naming of Cats, T.S. Elliot:

But above and beyond there’s still one name left over,

And that is the name that you never will guess;

The name that no human research can discover—

But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.

When you notice a cat in profound meditation,

The reason, I tell you, is always the same:

His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation

Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:

His ineffable effable

Effanineffable

Deep and inscrutable singular name.

The Naming of Wines

The naming of wines can be as inscrutable at T.S. Elliot’s cats in the poem above.

Sometimes, wine names can be the result of a country’s rigorous quality requirements—as in France or Spain—and sometimes it’s the name of a daughter or wife or the founder of the winery. Sometimes, it’s just a whim.

Rex Goliath was the name of a 47 lb. rooster that toured Texas in a circus wagon. My brother found that name on an old poster advertising when Rex would be in town, so people would come to see the show. My brother used the poster on the label and it is now one of the most successful brands in California.

Carol’s Vineyard ($66/ bottle, 95 points) in Napa Valley is named after the wife of one of my old partners, Jerry Lohr.

Domaine Robert Chevillon les Saint-Georges, Nuits St. Georges Premier Cru, 2020 is one of 41 designated Premier Cru vineyards in Les Nuits St. Georges, Nuits-St-Georges, Burgundy, France.

Its name comes from the nearby village named Nuits-St.Georges (which is also the name of the largest region), Les Nuit-St. Georges (which is a smaller region of the Nuits-St. Georges region) and from the owner’s name, Robert Chevillion. ($200/ bottle, 95 pts)

The Premier Cru part is the French Government’s quality rating system, which includes Byzantine requirements for soil, grapes, vinification, production limits and such. Premier Cru falls just under Grand Cru which are the very best vineyard designations in France.

Vineyard Map of the vineyards around Nuits-St.-Georges, Burgundy, France

Notice, it’s a lot easier to explain Carol’s Vineyard than Chevillion’s Premier Cru. But, that’s nothing compared to German vineyard designations. How are you feeling about 2018 Schloss Johannisberger Violettlack Eiswein 0,375L EDELSÜSS?

And, I’m not even starting on Italy or Australia or Khazakistan. Or, Hungary.

I think the best way to learn this stuff is by looking at maps since it’s mostly geography. Hugh Johnson’s (updated these days with Jancis Robinson) is where I learned. Wine Folly at www.winefolly.com also offers good maps as do lots of other places.

Personally, I think it would be a lot easier if you just called the wine Bob and had done with it.

If you want a place to begin, France is the baseline for all the other designations (even though Spain was slightly earlier). And, the French way of naming wines started with Roquefort Cheese, of course. Everybody knows that. French government guarantees of authenticity for Roquefort began in 1411.

It took wine 500 years to catch up to cheese (1905).

The French created what they call appellation d'origine contrôlée, abbreviated A.OC., which translates roughly “as controlled designation of origin.”

There are AOC’s in France for cheese, butter, lavender, chickens, lamb, honey, lentils (among other things)—and wine, of course. The French are much more serious about naming wine than Americans. Also, cheese.

When I was importing wine into New York City I had to be meticulous about tracking the AOCs (certificates of authenticity in English)—the document itself, I mean. French AOC Certificates can, and are, treated like cash. I had to present them to Customs in the U.S. to get the wine off the boat.

AOCs are bought and sold (illegally) and if one chooses to attach them to a different wine than they were intended for…. Voilá!… your Algerian $5 red is suddenly $50 Nuit St Georges.

I know you’re spellbound here, but I’m not going to get into PDOs and AOPs (which as I’m sure you know, can all be on the same case or product.)

In California, the equivalents are AVAs which include things like Calistoga, Diamond Mountain, Carneros, and Stag’s Leap. If you’re really into details you can look them up here: https://napavintners.com/napa_valley/appellations.asp, “Napa Valley Nested AVAs” from Napa Vintners.

There you will find the whole list. Or you can just look at this map.

The Traditional Way to Learn About Wine

The traditional way to teach wine is to teach geography and grapes. Memorizing all these names is impossible for normal human beings. That’s why I tell you to start with what’s in the glass in front of you. All you have to know to be an expert is your own opinion.

But, if the traditional way appeals to you, pick a wine you like, and start learning about the names for the region where the wine was made or the grapes were grown. You can start with the label.

Designations like “Ceres” (Bronco) or “Modesto" (Gallo) are small towns, in this case in the Central Valley of California. They both have hundreds of brands so the name could be anything. Look on the back label to see where your brand was bottled. If it’s Ceres or Modesto it’s Bronco or Gallo.

That’s not foolproof because Gallo has a bottling facility in Sonoma and Bronco has a facility in Napa. So, to avoid marketing webs of deceit, I’m just saying that if you can afford it, $15-$25 bottles will teach you a lot more and get you out of the weeds in the low end wine naming trap.

Do you know the AVAs of Missouri? Of course you don’t. Nobody does, even in Missouri. Here’s a hint. There are five of them. You can see them here: https://missouriwine.org/about-us/history-and-avas

Names on Labels

“California” is much too broad to tell you anything about the taste of the wine although odds are, it’s better than “Arkansas.” “Santa Barbara” is better but you’ve got to get down to “Santa Maria Valley” or “Santa Inez Valley” in Santa Barbara before you get to something like a typical taste.

Better than that is to get down to a specific vineyard—most American vineyards are owned by one person— but in France it is standard for a single vineyard to have multiple owners with names for each owner’s piece of the vineyard.

So, if you really like a French Burgundy vineyard for example, you will want to learn the names of the owners to get the exact taste you want. Give the same exact grapes from the same vineyard to five different winemakers and you’ll get five different tasting wines.

“Spear’s Estate Chardonnay from Santa Rita Hills, Santa Barbara, Central Coast, California" 2018” ($38/bottle, 93 points) tells you it’s from the Santa Rita Hills sub-region of Santa Barbara which is itself a sub-region of the much larger “Central Coast” area of California.

Since it’s an estate, then it’s a single vineyard, owned entirely by Spears winery and was harvested in 2018.

Stay with me here now, if Spears was to sell me some of the grapes from that estate vintage—which I don’t think Spears would do but some estate vineyards do—then I could name it Leigon Vineyards “Spears Estate” 2018 or I could call it“Bob” 2018 depending on the deal I cut with Spears.

To learn names effectively it’s much quicker if you take one region at a time (Napa, Burgundy, Willamette Valley) and taste as much as you can from that region to get a feel for the range of typical tastes. Carneros chardonnay in Napa tastes different from Calistoga Chardonnay at the other end of the valley.

When an owner tastes at the winery, he is looking for differences that make a difference.

Maybe Block A is down by the river and is regularly hit with phylloxera when the river floods and Block C is next to the highway and tastes like car exhaust. If Block B is great you name it “Bob’s Real Fine Vineyard B ” and raise the price.

If you mix the Blocks together, you’ll never know.

Wine Names

The naming of wines is complicated because it’s all about money. If you can produce a name that you own, you can sell it for more than the same wine would bring without a name.

A single wine can have more names than T. S. Elliot’s cats but in the end, just like with the cats, the names of wine are nested inside of each other like the Ukrainian Nesting Doll Sets my ex-wife still collects —one inside the other, until you get to the smallest one.