Is Chablis (and Bordeaux, and Burgundy, etc.) a Type of Wine or a Place?
The short answer is both. Chablis, Bordeaux, Burgundy, (and Rioja, Barolo, Chianti, etc.) are both a type of wine and a place, but they are not a type of grape. It’s no surprise there’s a lot of confusion surrounding this concept, especially noting that the paradigm for how we think about and “label” wines in our own mind is completely different in the U.S. than it is in the Old World, hence the confusion.
To understand this concept most fully, it’s helpful first to understand the concept of Appellations in wine, but that’s a story for another time. In fact, if you’re curious about that whole story, we cover it in great depth in the unPINNED Wine Course. At its core, the paradigm difference between categorizing and speaking about wines in the New World vs. the Old World is that in the New World (which includes, of course, the U.S.), we think about wines in terms of grape varietal, whereas in the Old World, folks think about wines in terms of place.
This is most readily apparent if you think about how we might answer the question: what wine are you drinking? The answer is almost always the name of a grape. I’m drinking a Chardonnay. I’m drinking a Pinot Noir. I’m drinking a [INSERT GRAPE NAME HERE].
As naturally and instinctively as we answer with a grape varietal, folks in the Old World answer as naturally and instinctively with a place. Applying the same thought experiment as before to the Old World: what wine are you drinking? The answer is almost always the name of a place. I’m drinking a Chablis. I’m drinking a Chianti Classico. I’m drinking a Champagne.
In the Old World, there is a notion that it’s more important where the wine comes from than what grape it’s made from. Another influencing trend here is that we tend to identify more with monovarietal wines (i.e. wines made from just one grape) than blends in the U.S., and there is a misconception that blends are of lower quality, which is wholly unfounded. Finally, there is a concept that’s a bit more pretentious and unwholesome, but it exists, so it’s worthwhile to know: some folks think you “should know” what the grapes in the wine are likely to be based on where the wine comes from. We’re not about that here at unPINNED, but some folks are, and now you know.
Because the Old World is place-centric, you identify the wine by the place. Because the New World is more varietal-centric, you identify the wine by the varietal. It’s not incorrect to say that you’re drinking a Cabernet blend if you’re drinking a Bordeaux (assuming that it’s probably one from the Left Bank), nor is it technically incorrect, I suppose, to say you’re drinking a Finger Lakes if you’re drinking, say, a Riesling from upstate-NY. But, it’s much more common to say Bordeaux and Riesling than Cab-blend and Finger Lakes, respectively, because of the norms that govern our colloquial dialogue around wine in different parts of the world.
If you haven’t quite put two and two together yet, this also explains why Chablis, Bordeaux, etc. are not grape varietals even though we use the words as we do a grape varietal when describing the wine we’re drinking. If you find any of this confusing (which it is!), and you’re curious to understand it all more holistically, check out our unPINNED Wine Course. We believe it’s the best quality wine course that exists in the world today!