Medium-Bodied Fruity Red Wines
Vintage image sourced on Pinterest
There are Wineluck Club tasting guides for light-bodied reds, full-bodied fruity reds and full-bodied savory reds…but so far, I haven’t written a guide for the wines in the middle. The Goldilocks-esque “not too this, not too that” wines. This tasting guide is for those wines, and is the first of two, since fruity and savory reds each deserve their own moment in the sun.
First up: medium-bodied fruity red wines, and just in time for peak grilling season.
Stuff to know
Medium-bodied wines can get a bit tricky, because there are climatic and winemaking variances that can push a particular wine toward the light-bodied or full-bodied side of things. For example, some Pinot Noir wines aren’t light-, but medium-bodied, especially the ones made in warmer climates, like parts of the United States and Australia, or ones aged partial or toasted new oak barrels. Some Merlot wines aren’t medium-, but full-bodied, especially the ones from warm climates aged in toasted new oak. I’m sure you’re sensing a theme here…
Body itself is confusing, too, since it’s a word more readily understood in the context of flesh than liquid. In wine’s case, the tannins, alcohol and sugar are the primary contributors, making a wine fuller-bodied, while acidity can make a wine feel lighter-bodied.
Extra-ripe grapes from warm places or warmer vintages will usually have more sugar in each grape and therefore more alcohol after fermentation, since yeasts consume the sugars and produce alcohol and CO2. Tannin, on the other hand, comes from both grapes and oak barrels.
Different grape varieties have more or less tannin, which you can both see and taste even in the grapes themselves, long before the wine is made. Pick a ripe Pinot Noir grape off a vine and it will usually be sweet and pleasant, with just a thin skin offering up some subtly scratchy tannin. Pick a ripe Cabernet Sauvignon grape off a vine and you’ll be chewing grape skin and feeling scratchy drying tannins all over your mouth. When grapes are grown in a warm or particularly sunny climate, their skins can be even thicker than they might otherwise be, since grape skins can thicken and darken, much like a summer tan.
Oak has natural tannin, too, and different types of oak have more or less natural tannin to offer. American oak releases its tannin and flavor easily, while slower-growing French oak trees tend to have a bit more restraint. How much or little the oak is toasted affects the tannin and flavor, too. If an oak barrel is almost charred, it will give a wine plenty of tannin and a dark, roasted coffee-like flavor, while a light toast will offer more subtlety. The amount of time a wine spends in oak and how much of that oak is newly toasted affects things, too. Suffice it to say that winemakers have quite a bit of control over how full-bodied a wine will be.
In this tasting, I’ve selected grapes and styles that are usually medium-bodied. There are exceptions…but there are always exceptions in the world of wine, which makes things endlessly entertaining and fun to explore.
What to look for in this tasting
This tasting’s title covers it well: these wines will have medium bodies with fruity flavors, usually red fruits like raspberries, cherries, strawberries, red currants and red plums, and black fruits like blackberries, black plums and black cherries. Which form the fruits take can vary, though in this tasting, most will be just-ripe, ripe or jammy, rather than dried. Even though these wines are fruity first, there will be other flavors in the glass, like violets, mint, thyme, rosemary, vanilla, cinnamon, cocoa, chocolate and more.
The tannins in these wines will be present, but they won’t overwhelm. The tannins’ textures can vary from soft and diffuse, barely noticeable though persistently present, to thick and clay-like.
The acidity levels in these wines will vary, too. Some will feel fresh and tangy, while in others, the acidity is just high enough to blend in well without adding much of a kick.
The wines
#1: Barbera
Barbera is known for being one of Piedmont’s traditional grapes, but it’s also planted all over Italy and these days, even further afield, in the US, Australia and Argentina. For this tasting, selecting a Barbera from one of the two best-known regions, Asti or Alba, is your best bet to secure a classic Piedmontese example. Barbera d’Asti is a DOCG, which is the highest quality classification for a historic area and wine style in Italy, so the best examples are typically found there.
Barbera wines have a reputation for being one of the best pizza-pairing partners in the wine world, right alongside the famous Sangiovese-based Chianti. And for good reason. Barbera wines are deceptively dark in the glass, so that you might think they’ll be big, bold wines with plenty of structure. Instead, these are juicy wines with plenty of acidity and low to moderate levels of tannin, making them exceedingly food-friendly and generally affordable.
They’re typically fruit-forward, with aromas and flavors of red and black cherries, blackberries and subtle herbs and spices. Some Barbera wines are aged in oak, in which case they’ll typically have flavors like cocoa, nutmeg and clove, too.
What to ask for: Ask by name, preferably a Barbera d’Asti, Barbera d’Asti Superiore, or Barbera d’Asti Superiore Nizza, Tinella or Colli Astiani (the 3 sub-zones of the Barbera d’Asti DOCG)
Alternative(s): Barbera d’Alba Superiore, Barbera d’Alba, Barbera del Monferrato Superiore, Barbera del Monferrato, Barbera wines from the US, Australia or Argentina
#2: Grenache
Grenache is claimed by both Spain and France, so who grew it first is under some debate. Sardinia, too, has its own claim to what they call Cannonau. Europe’s history of border shifting has something to do with this murky provenance, since the kingdom of Aragón (the medieval one, not than the modern-day region) used to reign over chunks of land on both sides of the Pyrenees, along with portions of Italy and the Mediterranean islands: Mallorca, Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica. Who brought the grape from which part of the kingdom to the other first isn’t the easiest to determine hundreds of years later.
Wherever it started, Grenache is essentially a Mediterranean grape, since it thrives in dry, warm, windy climates. It’s a pretty durable vine, which made it a go-to grape for growers around the Mediterranean and during the early years of viticultural exploration in far-off countries with similar climates, like California in the United States, Australia and South Africa.
Grenache often isn’t riding solo, but is instead blended with other grapes, so it can be a bit challenging to pick out exactly what it brings to the party. Generally, wines made entirely from Grenache are on the pale side color-wise, making it easy to confuse them for delicate, thin wines when they’re anything but.
Grenache needs a lot of warmth and sunshine to ripen, and when it finally does, there’s a lot of sugar in the grapes. Sugar turns into alcohol thanks to fermentation, so wines with Grenache in the mix might look pale, but they’re what wine people like to call “big” or “hot” alcohol-wise. Keep an eye on the ABV, since it can be high.
Tannin-wise, Grenache is more chill, with light or moderate tannins that can feel soft and diffuse. It doesn’t bring a lot of acidity to the table, though what it does bring can be plenty in the right winemaker’s hands. Flavor-wise, watch out for ripe red fruits like strawberries, cherries and red plums. I often taste blood oranges and strawberry fruit leather in Grenache-based wines. If you didn’t grow up eating fruit leather (or its more artificial counterpart, Fruit Roll-Ups), plain old dried strawberries are similar enough to make the point. Spices, actual leather and herbal flavors can also make an appearance thanks to Grenache in these wines.
What to ask for: A Grenache-based wine, preferably 100% Grenache, from any country or region, such as the Southern Rhône or Languedoc-Roussillon in France, Rioja, Priorat, Sardinia, Australia, the USA or South Africa
Alternative(s): Stick with a Grenache-based wine, preferably 100% Grenache
#3: Merlot
Merlot grapevines are from Bordeaux, and while its frequent blending partner, Cabernet Sauvignon, is the better-known Bordeaux variety, Merlot is far and away the most-planted grape in the region.
And yet, Merlot’s reputation still holds a strange dichotomy: renowned, yet reviled. Twenty years after “the Sideways effect” tanked Merlot sales and forced wineries that had been cranking out boringly overripe wines to shift their focus elsewhere, Merlot-based wines like Petrus, Cheval Blanc, Le Pin and Masseto have never been worth more.
Today, Merlot is grown elsewhere in France, too, from Bergerac and Cahors to the Languedoc. In Italy, winemakers are making both monovarietal and blended Merlots in Trentino Alto-Adige, Friuli, Tuscany and Bolgheri. Switzerland, Spain, Austria, Moldova, Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia make wines with Merlot too. Further afield, monovarietal Merlots and Merlot-dominant red blends are made in South Africa, America, Chile, Argentina, Australia and New Zealand.
Merlot wines often have flavors of cocoa powder, milk chocolate, dark chocolate, coffee and espresso beans. Basically mocha madness. However. I’m not promising that every single Merlot will include these flavors. Merlot wines are usually medium-bodied, though they can be bigger in warmer climates or vintages. Like most Bordeaux varieties, Merlots have good acidity and grippy, drying tannins, but instead of being fine-grained like Cabernet Sauvignon’s, Merlot’s tannins tend to feel sticky, almost like clay, or peanut butter, if the thought of eating clay doesn’t exactly connote delicious.
The first thing I always think of when I think of Merlots are plums. Ripe, fleshy, juicy plums. They’re by no means the only fruit you’ll taste in a Merlot wine, but they’re indicative of the texture that tends to come with the fruit: a velvety, silken quality that characterizes Merlot. It’s this distinctive texture that makes Merlot so appealing, even to wine newbies. Flavors in Merlots can range from red and black plums to blackberries, boysenberries, raspberries, black cherries, blueberries, figs, violets, tobacco leaves, bay leaves, tomato leaves, thyme, mint, eucalyptus, tarragon, fennel, licorice and star anise, truffles, dried mushrooms, wet leaves, vanilla and tonka beans, all before you even get to the range of potential chocolate and coffee flavors.
What to ask for: A Merlot-based wine, preferably 100% Merlot from any country or region, such as Bordeaux’s Right Bank, Tuscany, Australia, the USA, Chile, Argentina, South Africa or New Zealand
Alternative(s): Stick with a Merlot-based wine, preferably 100% Merlot
#4: Bierzo Mencía
Bierzo (”bee-yehr-tho”) is the name of the region and Mencia (”men-thee-ah”) is the name of the grape. If your idea of Spanish wines is that they’re all bold, big, fruity wines, Mencia will surprise you. These are medium-bodied, hauntingly aromatic red wines that are just as versatile and affordable as your go-to Barbera.
Bierzo is in northwestern Spain, just inside the huge central region of Castilla y León. Bierzo shares a border with Spain’s northwesternmost region, Galicia, where Atlantic weather cools and soaks the vines. With mountains and hills surrounding much of Bierzo, you’d think the climate would transition to being fully continental, but the western side of the region is largely flat, so the Atlantic still has its way from time to time, making some vintages chilly and wet while others stay toasty and dry.
The Mencia wines made here were once pretty basic wines meant for the locals to enjoy, but producers like Alvaro Palacios and his nephew Ricardo Pérez saw the potential in the slate slopes that resembled parts of Priorat on the other side of the country, and quickly enough, the locals started raising the bar on their own wines, too.
Most wines in Bierzo are 100% Mencia, though Alicante Bouschet is allowed as a blending partner. The wines tend to be medium-bodied with moderate to high acidity, chalky moderate tannins and red fruit flavors like sour cherry, raspberry, red plum and pomegranate, with some blackberry, tarragon, violets, green olives, smoke, dried tobacco, licorice, cinnamon and that mysterious minerality that is often described as wet slate or crushed gravel. Some Mencía wines are made with semi-carbonic maceration in steel tanks, intended to be juicy, fruity and fresh. Others are weightier wines that can develop with age, usually matured in oak barrels that add spice and dried tobacco flavors to the wines.
What to ask for: Mencia from Bierzo
Alternative(s): Mencia wines from Ribeira Sacra, Monterrei, Valdeorras
#5: Montepulciano d’Abruzzo
When I first started studying wine, I found it endlessly confusing that there is a Montepulciano grape variety - the one we’re talking about here - grown in and around a region called Abruzzo…and a village called Montepulciano on the other side of Italy, in Tuscany, where the wines are made from Sangiovese and are called Vino Nobile di Montepulciano. As if wine wasn’t already difficult enough to study…
Despite Italy’s penchant for varying the names of foods, grapes and more between regions, most of the time, if someone is talking about a Montepulciano wine, they’re talking about a Montepulciano d’Abruzzo. Abruzzo is a region on Italy’s Adriatic coast, in central Italy east of Rome. The wine region is incredibly varied, with sandy, coastal plains as well as hilly and mountainous terrain, thanks to the Apennines. Where the grapes are grown can dramatically impact the style of wine, with riper, fruitier and less acidic wines usually coming from lower-lying vineyards while the wines with more tannin, acidity and complexity tend to be made from grapes growing at higher elevations.
The wines can also be made in easy-drinking, unoaked styles as well as rich, fruity oak-aged styles worthy of aging. There are even sparkling, sweet and rosato (rosé) wines like the famed Cerasuolo d’Abruzzo made from this versatile grape. Most Montepulciano d’Abruzzo wines are DOC wines, though there is a DOCG called Colline Teramane from which the wines are generally of very high quality.
Like many Italian red wines, the dominant fruit flavor in these wines tends to be sour red cherry, with the tangy, high acidity to match. You might also find flavors of cranberry, plum, blackberry, oregano, tomato leaf and black pepper. Some wines will have aromas of dried tobacco leaves and leather, and if the wine has been oak aged, it might have flavors of chocolate or mocha. The tannins tend to be moderate with a soft, chalky texture.
What to ask for: Ask by name
Alternative(s): Montepulciano-based wines from other Italian regions like Lazio, Marche, Molise, Tuscany, Umbria or Puglia. There are also a few Montepulciano-based wines made in the United States, Mexico, Australia and New Zealand that will work here too.
#6: Zweigelt
Zweigelt (”tsvy-gelt”) is an Austrian grape, one created by a Dr. Fritz Zweigelt in the 1920s when he crossed two red grapes, Blaufränkisch and St. Laurent, and ended up with a new variety of wine grape that was worth keeping. Zweigelt today is still mostly grown in Austria, where it’s the most-planted red grape today, though parts of Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary have caught on, and Canada, too, has added Zweigelt to its repertoire.
Zweigelt, despite its decidedly unsexy name and history, makes some seriously delicious wine. The very first Zweigelt wine I tasted was sold in a one liter bottle one shelf above the bottom in an H-E-B grocery store with a plain, unappealing label. It was the only Zweigelt I could find in Austin at the time, and let’s just say that if I wasn’t looking for a Zweigelt for my wine studies, I never would have bought it. But then once I tried it, I couldn’t stop recommending it to friends. I went on a full-fledged Zweigelt tasting spree for a while, and while my fervor has calmed down, I will still happily recommend these wines. And luckily, there are many, many more options on the market today.
Zweigelt wines are usually medium-bodied, though some winemakers make fuller-bodied or lighter styles as well as rosés from the grapes, too. Most Zweigelt wines have a purple-ish tinge to their bright ruby color, though some are darker, particularly if they’ve been oak aged.
Look out for dark fruit flavors, like blackberry, black plum and Morello cherry, with a peppery edge that’s sometimes complemented by other spices like cinnamon and anise.
What to ask for: Ask by name
Alternative(s): Stick with a Zweigelt wine from any region in Austria or Germany, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic or Canada
Tasting tips
The eats
Given that it’s late June as I write this, all things grilled are top of mind. Admittedly, I usually reach for white, rosé and sparkling wines when it’s hot out, but when there are burgers or steaks on the grill or brisket and pulled pork in the smoker, it feels necessary to bust out some reds. Just not the biggest, boldest reds…it’s still hot out, after all. Medium-bodied wines bring enough tannin and oomph, without leaving me ready to take a nap after dinner. If you or your guests aren’t meat lovers, grill up vegetables like Portobello mushrooms, peppers and eggplant.
If you choose the charcuterie route, look for cheeses and meats with relatively robust flavor profiles. Not necessarily the knock-your-socks-off strength, but sufficient flavor to stand up to some tannin, with cheeses like cheddar, Asiago or Gruyère and meats like salami, Serrano ham, or summer sausage. Even the breads can use some extra heartiness, with whole-grain options in the mix, whether crackers, crusty bread or toasted crostini. Cherries, figs and red grapes will add some contrasting sweetness, while green olives add a salty bite. Round things out with nuts like pecans and spiced almonds and you’ll be ready to roll.
The prep
Some of these wines, like Mencía and Zweigelt, come from specific regions and may take some time to find, depending on where you live. Other wines, like Grenache and Merlot, are styles made in many wine regions globally, so they’ll be easy to find. These wines can be found at a wide range of price points, so it’s up to you as a host to decide whether you want to provide a spending range, or if you just want to leave that decision up to your guests.
I know it might feel strange to chill red wines, but these wines are still best with just a little bit of coolness to them. Imagine that you are grabbing these bottles straight from a fancy cellar where the air feels brisk and damp. That’s the goal here: a quick dunk in an ice bucket or a short break in the fridge will suffice.
A note on the tasting order: The wines are listed in the order of which should be included first. If you have fewer than 6 wines/guests, you’ll still have a well-rounded experience. However, the order in which you taste the wines, regardless of how many wines are included, is recommended as follows:
Bierzo Mencía
Grenache
Zweigelt
Barbera
Montepulciano d’Abruzzo
Merlot
